Baseball: Louisiana vs Sacramento State

[RaginEsquire06]

Way to go Cajuns!

[RaisingCajun08]

I believe that Buddy Glass will take the mound on Friday.

[NewsCopy]

Victory gives Louisiana its best start in school history with a 13-0 record

HONOLULU, Hawaii - A first-time mound starter going against the opposing team's ace? Not problem.

Threat of a letdown after wins in their biggest two tests on the first two days of a tournament? Not likely.

When you're on the roll that the University of Louisiana baseball team is on, it's going to take more than that.

The Ragin' Cajuns got yet another solid pitching effort, this time from newcomer Jonathan Cottrell and freshman Hunter Moody, and got eight hits in the final four innings in rallying from a 2-0 deficit and posting a 4-2 win over Sacramento State here Thursday in their third game of the First Hawaii Title Rainbow Tournament.

The 21st-ranked Cajuns improved to 13-0, equaling UL's school record for most wins to start a season, and stand at 3-0 in the tournament at Hawaii's Les Murakami Stadium. UL is the only unbeaten team in the six-team tournament heading into today's 6:30 p.m. (CST) contest against Cal-Davis.

UL scored twice in the fifth inning to tie the game and pushed across single runs in the sixth and seventh after Sacramento State starter Ethan Katz (1-3) had handcuffed the Cajuns through the first four innings.

"They threw their best arm at us," said Cajun head coach Tony Robichaux, "but people are going to do that to us. Give him (Katz) credit for doing a good job, but our hitters did a great job of getting something going after we had gone once through the order."

UL left runners on base in each of the first eight innings, but finally got to Katz in that fifth inning with a pair of unearned runs. Leadoff batter Jameson Parker reached second on a throwing error on SSU shortstop Everett Rincon and Josh Landry followed with a one-out single.

Justin Merendino's bouncing single up the middle scored Parker, and one out later John McCarthy's single to center plated Landry with the tying run.

The Cajuns took the lead for good one inning later when Katz walked Dallas Morris and Parker, and Landry delivered a two-out single to left for the 3-2 edge.

"Sometimes when you're a good club people expect you to score 10 runs every time," Robichaux said. "It's baseball. Some days you're going to leave runners on. The key is to keep the game on your side. We weren't sloppy and we got pitches over the plate."

The rest of the story