Not one member of UL's baseball squad wanted to lose its regular-season finale Saturday, but the 9-3 loss to New Orleans' Privateers may have been good for the Ragin' Cajun squad.

The Saturday setback didn't affect much. UL had long ago claimed the Sun Belt Conference crown, and ended up winning the league by an unprecedented seven-game margin by taking two of three games at UNO.

The two-out-of-three also put the Cajun squad over the 40-win regular-season milestone, topping last year's total wins. The 40 wins going into postseason play is the highest victory total in a 56-game regular season since Tony Robichaux took over as head coach in 1995.

It also likely didn't affect any postseason chances past this week's Sun Belt Tournament. Even with the loss, UL finished its season winning eight of its last nine and 11 of its last 13, more than fulfilling the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee's charge to reward teams playing well at the end of the season.

UL went into the weekend ranked 13th on the NCAA's official Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) and on both of the most-recognized online RPI projections. The Cajuns were 14th on the projected lists as of Sunday and will likely be in that position when the official list is released on Wednesday.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com