A week of intense individual hitting workouts paid dividends for the University of Louisiana softball team Saturday.
The Ragin' Cajuns collected 16 hits and four home runs in 12 innings on the way to a 5-2, 10-0 doubleheader sweep of Middle Tennessee at Blue Raider Park in Murfreesboro, Tenn., a sweep that locked down no worse than a share of the Sun Belt Conference regular-season title.
Included in the homer fest were back-to-back leadoff homers by Danyele Gomez in the nightcap, one ended after five innings by run rule, in a late explosion that extended her national home run lead.
"Both games we got out swinging the bats," said Cajun coach Stefni Lotief. "We worked really hard on that last week. A lot of them were in finals so we had some stresses during the week, and we couldn't really practice as a full team because of test schedules. But they went out and played well today."
The Cajuns (44-10, 11-3 Sun Belt) assured themselves of the No. 1 seed in next week's Sun Belt Championships hosted by No. 2 seed Florida International in Miami. A win in today's noon finale against the Blue Raiders (19-39-1, 6-8 Sun Belt) or an FIU home loss to Troy would give the Cajuns their sixth straight regular-season title and their seventh straight overall.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com