It's the last chance for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team to take one more assessment before starting Sun Belt Conference play.

Maybe more importantly, it's the last chance to find a third starting pitcher before entering the league wars.

Taking care of those tasks will be on head coach Tony Robichaux's mind tonight when the Cajuns welcome Lamar University's Cardinals (16-9) at 6:30 p.m. at Moore Field. It's the last non-conference battle before UL hosts South Alabama Friday through Sunday in a Sun Belt weekend series.

The Cajuns are 19-4 and still ranked in the nation's top 20 in two different polls released on Monday - 19th by Collegiate Baseball and 20th by USA Today Sports Weekly/ESPN.

But they've also lost two of their last four games, both to teams with losing records, and had to struggle to take two of three games from LeMoyne's Dolphins at home over the past weekend. After a 14-0 start, the Cajuns are 5-4 in their last nine games.

"We've been playing our share of bad baseball since the Southeastern game," Robichaux said, referring to last Wednesday's 11-inning 12-11 loss to the Lions. "When you get in a rut like we've been in, things don't go your way a lot of times. Everything went our way when we won 14 in a row.

"We've got to work to clean this up, because we're running out of time before the South Alabama series."

UL has its first two pitchers locked in for the weekend, with seniors Kevin Ardoin (5-0, 1.03) and Austin Faught (4-0, 2.37) in those roles. But Robichaux said that the third starting spot is up in the air, and someone's performance tonight might be the deciding factor.

"We definitely don't have an answer right now," he said. "We may throw nine different pitchers against Lamar, one guy per inning and see who wants to pitch on the weekend."

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com