Winningest Regional Team Displayed Their Worth

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After 7 games in 4 days Louisiana finished with more wins than any other team in the field of 64 regional tournament.

No other team had as many as 5 wins, 13 other teams had 4. 8 of the 13 advanced to the college world series. Louisiana finished with a 5-2 record setting a school record 60 wins in the process. UL had wins over the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 seeds.

Louisiana's final record was 5-2, the Lady Cajuns lost no series, going 1-1 vs the 1 and 2 seeds respectively.

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Lady Cajuns displayed their worth in regional play

UL Lafayette wasn’t wanted at the Women’s College World Series.

The selection committee made that perfectly clear last weekend, assigning the Ragin’ Cajuns an absurd, laughably political No. 5 seed and dispatching them to the toughest region in the NCAA Tournament.

To return to Oklahoma City, the Cajuns had to get past No. 1 national seed Arizona, which had been to the WCWS each year since 1987 and had won six national crowns.

They also had to block the path of Oklahoma, which had been to the last four World Series in its home state.

They had to play in the desert, with its deceiving heat and 10 percent humidity that is the exact opposite of south Louisiana conditions.

Yet they almost got it done.

The Cajuns returned home Monday evening from Tucson, one day after forcing a deciding game on Championship Sunday before hitting the wall and losing 15-0 to Oklahoma.

UL defeated each team seeded ahead of it in Tucson, topping No. 4 South Carolina 1-0, No. 3 Northwestern 3-0 and No. 1 Arizona 5-0, in addition to No. 7 Temple (8-1), to reach Sunday and then hammering No. 2 Oklahoma 12-4.

But a 4-0 second-day loss to host Arizona shoved the Cajuns into the losers’ bracket, and that proved costly with extra innings in the heat.

Eliminating Arizona was an emotional high that carried over to Sunday’s first game against OU, but that’s as far as the Cajuns could go.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com