Lady Cajuns Softball opens road trip at Northwestern State Wednesday

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No. 10 Louisiana-Lafayette gets its final tuneup for the Sun Belt race

NATCHITOCHES - The 10th-ranked Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns softball team begins an eight-game road trip here Wednesday evening at the Demon Softball Complex against in-state rival Northwestern State in a 5 p.m. doubleheader.

The games will be the Ragin' Cajuns (30-4) lone action of the week as the squad has the weekend off from competition for the second straight week.

It's also Louisiana's last non-conference tuneup before the Sun Belt Conference slate opens on Saturday, April 10 at New Mexico State.

The Cajuns are coming off of a 2-0, 6-2 doubleheader sweep of Nicholls State last Wednesday at Ragin' Cajuns Softball Park that put the team back on the winning track.

UL and Northwestern State (18-18) will be meeting for the second and third times this season. The two teams met in the 18th Annual Louisiana Classics in Lafayette on Sunday, Feb. 15 with the host-Cajuns taking a 5-2 victory in the only meeting between the two clubs this season.

The Cajuns have owned the series through the years and have won 57 of the last 68 meetings. Louisiana-Lafayette has won the last five meetings with the Demons and is 28-6 all-time in Natchitoches.

Holly Tankersley leads the Cajuns offense with a .330 batting average, 10 home runs and 16 extra base hits.

Sophomore Danyele Gomez is the team's top run producer so far, having brought home 30 runs. The Metairie native is eight RBI short of 100 for her career

In the pitching circle, Brooke Mitchell continues to impress. The Pasadena, Texas, native became the first player in program history to reach 300 strikeouts in a single season in the Nicholls twinbill and enters Wednesday's action with 319 strikeouts this season.

Mitchell enters the doubleheader needing two wins to tie her personal single-season best of 26 victories set last season when she went 26-9.

Head coach Stefni Lotief enters the twinbill two wins shy of 180 in her career.

The Demons, who opened the season 9-5 with a championship at the UNLV Mini Tournament, have lost 13 of their last 22 contests and sit at the .500 mark entering a single game with Centenary College Tuesday evening.

NSU took 2-of-3 from Louisiana-Monroe this past weekend to improve its Southland Conference record to 5-7.

The Demons are opening a 13-game homestand when the Cajuns come calling on Wednesday and are 5-2 on their home turf.

Following Wednesday's doubleheader, Louisiana will enjoy a nine-day break from action before venturing out west to Las Cruces, N.M., for a Sun Belt Conference-opening weekend series with New Mexico State.

DOUBLEHEADER DELIGHT.
Dating back to a doubleheader spilt at UL Monroe on April 24, 2002, the Cajuns have swept 26 of their last 29 doubleheaders.UL Lafayette has swept 45 of 53 doubleheaders under Stefni Lotief, since 2001.So far this season, the Cajuns have swept all three doubleheaders that they've been involved in sweeping Nicholls State (Feb. 18 & March 24) and UL Monroe (Feb. 25).The Cajuns have 13 twinbills remaining this regular season.

HOW THE CAJUNS STACK UP WITH THE NATION'S BEST.
Louisiana faced the U.S. Olympic Team while at the KIA Klassic, hanging tough with the nation's best in a 3-0 loss.Brooke Mitchell fanned six batters and surrendered just seven hits to the Olympians.The only three runs the U.S. scored came off of three solo home runs.Team USA's three runs marked only the third time in 23 games that the Olympians were held under four runs in a game.

This past Sunday, the Olympic Team faced No. 2 UCLA and crushed the Bruins with an 11-0 run-rule rout.UCLA ace Keira Goerl, the same pitcher that pitched the Bruins to the 2003 national championship, struggled against the Olympians allowing 11 runs off of 11 hits.

On Friday, Arizona dealt with Olympians and was handed a 6-1 loss.UA ace Alicia Hollowell gave up six runs (all earned) and six hits while fanning five.

CAJUNS VS. LOUISIANA TEAMS.
Wednesday's twinbill will be the Cajuns 14th and 15th games against in-state foes this season.UL Lafayette is 12-1 versus teams from Louisiana this season.The Cajuns are scheduled to play two more games in the regular season against in-state competition with a doubleheader at Louisiana Tech on Wednesday, April 14 being the only other games against Louisiana schools.Historically, the Cajuns have dominated their in-state competition.Louisiana-Lafayette is 415-121 (.774) all-time against Louisiana schools that sponsor softball.UL is 54-9 (.857) against Louisiana teams under head coach Stefni Lotief.

LOUISIANA SI

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Lady Cajuns travel to NSU Demons

NATCHITOCHES — The Sun Belt Conference softball race doesn’t begin until April 10-11 for Louisiana when the Lady Cajuns visit New Mexico State, but they’ll have no trouble focusing for today’s 5 p.m. doubleheader at Northwestern State.

The Lady Cajuns lead the series 59-13, including a 5-2 UL victory on Feb. 15 as part of the Louisiana Classics, and in-state rivals always provide a special incentive.

Equally important, though, is NSU’s membership in the Southland Conference.

The Southland, Missouri Valley and Big 12 Conference join the Sun Belt as leagues in the NCAA Midwest Region, and UL’s performance against those schools is pivotal to entry in the NCAA Tournament at season’s end.

UL is No. 7 in this week’s ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll and has been competing in the NCAA Tournament since before the Sun Belt included softball as a conference sport, largely because the Cajuns take care of business against regional foes.

Coach Stefni Lotief’s squad is 14-2 against Midwest Region opponents this spring, and 22 of its remaining 26 games are against Midwest clubs. The Cajuns are also 12-1 against Louisiana foes this season (415-121 all-time).

Off to a 30-4 start that is a high mark under Lotief after 34 games and the best at UL since the 1993 and 1994 squads began 32-2, the Cajuns have outscored foes 108-18 in the first three innings (48-2 in the first). Under Lotief, the Cajuns are 152-9 when scoring first.

UL has launched 51 home runs and is batting .300 with runners in scoring position, including 51 two-out RBI. Freshman Holly Tankersley (.330, 10 HR, 22 RBI), Danyele Gomez (.282, 7 HR, 30 RBI), Brittany Bryant (.280, 6 HR, 17 RBI), Lacey Bertucci and Joy Webre (6 HR each) provide punch.

But the Cajuns are known mainly for junior Brooke Mitchell’s brilliant pitching.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com