No. 17 Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns softball team kicks off the 2008 Sun Belt Conference season with a road series with Middle Tennessee.

UL (17-5) holds a 29-2 advantage in the series, claiming the first 29 games of the series. The Cajuns will look to avenge a pair of losses to the Blue Raiders from the 2007 season.

The Cajuns enter the weekend on the heels of back-to-back shutout wins over IUPUI.

Louisiana got a perfect game performance out of freshman pitcher Ashley Brignac (River Ridge, La.) in the first game taking a 12-0 win.

Brignac faced just 15 batters in the victory. The freshman tossed a perfect game retiring 13 of the 15 batters who stepped to the plate by way of strikeout. Brignac threw just 65 pitches in the game, but registered 50 strikes en route to a season-high 13 strikeouts. Brignac started off the game retiring the first nine batters she faced on strikes. After an infield pop-up, the freshman phenomenon fanned the next four batters before inducing a ground ball to end the game. Only two balls were put into play against Brignac. Melissa Verde (Beaumont, Texas) caught a pop up in the fourth inning and fielded a ground ball in the fifth to end the game.

The game marked the first time a Cajuns’ pitcher threw a perfect game since Brooke Mitchell (2002-05) tossed a perfect game in the 2003 season-opener against Louisiana Tech on Feb. 11. Mitchell worked a flawless 5.0 innings of work with five strikeouts.

In game two of the doubleheader, the Cajuns one-hit the Jaguars en route to a 14-0 victory.

Offensively, the Cajuns are led by Holly Tankersley (Kirbyville, Texas) heading into conference play. She boasts a team-best .420 batting average and leads the team with nine home runs and a pair of triples. Tankersley also leads the team in slugging percentage and on-base percentage.

Tankersley needs just one home run to move into a tie for second place all-time with Lacey Bertucci (2004-07) in career homers.

The Lady Cajuns open the three-game series with a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m.

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Chris Whitehead