Louisiana's Kyle DeBarge had quite the debut in the 2022 Guardian Credit Union Sun Belt Baseball Championship.
Playing in his first game in the Sun Belt postseason, the freshman shortstop went 4-for-4 at the plate with a pair of RBI and two runs scored as Louisiana pounded out 15 hits and defeated No. 5-seeded South Alabama, 9-1, in a quarterfinal game on Friday at Riverwalk Stadium.
Brandon Talley and two relievers combined to scatter 10 hits and fan nine batters as fourth-seeded Louisiana (34-21) advanced to Saturday's semifinal contest at 7 p.m., against top-seeded and 11th-ranked Texas State (45-11), an 8-2 winner over ULM.
"We came out ready to play obviously, we had several days to think about it," Louisiana head coach Matt Deggs said. "I thought our speed really benefited us tonight, it's hard to get 15 knocks on 33 at-bats. We were able to use our short game, we were able to leg out double play balls to keep innings alive, we were able to take some extra bases. We benefited from some freebies from them, which is uncharacteristic of those guys, and we caught some breaks tonight too