Record-wise, ranking-wise or tradition-wise, take your pick.

Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team will face its toughest challenge of the week right off the bat today when UL opens play in the First Hawaii Title Rainbow Baseball Tournament.

The undefeated Cajuns will take on the likewise-unbeaten Wichita State Shockers today at 6:30 p.m. (CDT, 2:30 p.m., Hawaii time) in the middle of a three-game slate that opens the five-day, six-team round-robin tournament.

Perennial Missouri Valley Conference and NCAA Tournament power Wichita State is 11-0 entering today's game, and ranks 15th nationally in the Collegiate Baseball magazine poll and 24th in the USA TODAY Sports Weekly-ESPN poll this week.

The Cajuns (10-0) have also made a statement in this week's national polls announced Monday.

UL is ranked 21st by Baseball America magazine - a poll that Wichita's not ranked in - and is 22nd in Collegiate Baseball, and the Cajuns are also the second-highest team receiving votes in the USA TODAY poll making them effectively 27th in that ranking.

But Cajun coach Tony Robichaux's not worried about rankings this week as he prepares his squad to play five games in a five-day stretch against a field that includes South Florida, Sacramento State, Cal-Davis and the host Hawaii team.

"We think that our pitching depth could be a big plus for us this season," Robichaux said, "and this tournament will give us a proving ground for that. We'll get a chance to see a lot of arms and see what they can do against this type of competition. The good thing is that everybody else is playing the same number of games, so our depth can help us."

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com