No. 5 Lady Cajuns looking for second tourney title in two weeks

Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns got stingy last weekend, and that's something that's likely to be repeated often this softball season.

The Cajun staff of All-American Brooke Mitchell, returnee Heather Bobbitt and newcomer Ashley Kirchberg held five opponents to just 15 hits and two unearned runs as UL fashioned a 5-0 launch to the campaign.

"Obviously, it's a great start," coach Stefni Lotief said. "I feel like, overall, we've done some of the key things we need to do to get strong and improve.

"It's nice to see us go out there with confidence, and that comes from having an awesome defense behind the pitcher."

Mitchell remains the ace of the staff, surging over 1,000 career strikeouts in Sunday's 8-0 victory over Sam Houston State, while Bobbitt is coming off a 5-2 season in 2004.

But, with Holly Tankersley (10-1, 1.36 ERA) redshirting the 2005 season, it was important to strengthen the staff.

That's where Kirchberg comes in. The junior from Galveston College, struck out 10 batters in six innings of play last weekend.

"Ashley is fiery," Lotief said. "She comes from a competitive junior college program out of Texas. Her sister, Andrea, was an All-American at Wisconsin (Andrea Kirchberg is on the 1,000K career list at 1,163).

"She brings a little swagger, and she works very hard. The pitchers feed off of great defense, and the defense feeds off of pitching. That's great as long as the pitchers trust the defense. It also doesn't hurt to get hits like we did last weekend."

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com