LOUISIANA La. - Louisiana's 14th-ranked softball team needed a way to shift the momentum of a scoreless game two here Sunday afternoon against North Texas. The power-hitting Ragin' Cajuns pulled out their bunting game to rattle a seemingly comfortable Kristina Fowler in the third inning.

Tiffany Hebert led off the bottom of the third inning with a perfectly placed bunt single up the third base line. Jill Robertson followed with another bunt, this one sacrificing Hebert over to second base. At this point, it was clear that Fowler and the Mean Green's infield wasn't quite sure what was coming next.

After Danyele Gomez flew out to left field for the second out, Fowler walked Brittany Bryant to give the Cajuns two baserunners. On the very next at bat, Louisiana (38-7, 12-0 Sun Belt) pulled out its two-out magic card and pushed across three runs when Ashley Evans got a hold of a Fowler offering and lined it over the left center field wall for her fifth home run of the season and a 3-0 lead.

The Cajuns tacked on three more runs in the fourth inning to chase Fowler and an extra two in the fifth off of reliever Morgan Monte to invoke the eight-run rule after five innings - the Cajuns fourth run-rule victory in their last eight Sun Belt games.

Heather Bobbitt (11-0, 1.42 ERA) allowed only one hit, a leadoff single from Monica Garcia in the third inning, and that was the Mean Green's lone base runner of the entire contest. Bobbitt fanned four and retired final nine batters she faced after Garcia's single for her 11th win against no losses (6-0 in Sun Belt play).

The win allowed the Ragin' Cajuns to sweep the four-game weekend series from North Texas (10-29, 3-9 Sun Belt) and extend its school-and Sun Belt-record regular season conference winning streak to 33 games. No. 14 Louisiana has not lost a Sun Belt Conference game since May 3, 2003 at Western Kentucky (L, 2-3 in 8 innings).

The Ragin' Cajuns overall season win streak grew to 16 games - a season-high and two wins shy of the Lotief Era-best 18-game win streak set in 2003 and 2004. The school record for consecutive wins is 24 straight games set March 19-April 22, 1994.

Louisiana swept its 13th doubleheader of the season and its 17th straight dating back to 2004. The Cajuns have now swept 67 of the 76 doubleheaders participated in under the direction of co-head coaches Stefni and Michael Lotief.

The Cajuns sweep combined with a split in Miami between Western Kentucky and Florida International (both 7-5 in Sun Belt play) increased Louisiana's lead in the race for the 2005 regular season championship to five games heading into the final two weekends. Louisiana will travel to Bowling Green, Ky., next weekend to face WKU with a chance to secure the crown before the final weekend of play.

After Evans' home run got the Cajuns on the board, the home team went back to work in the fourth inning getting three more runs.

Joy Webre led off the inning with the Cajuns second straight leadoff bunt single and moved to second on a throwing error by Susan Waters. Pinch hitter Michelle Bergeaux then laid down another bunt single to put runners on the corner for Codi Runyan. Runyan delivered a long fly ball deep into foul territory in the left field corner allowing Webre to tag for a 4-0 edge on Runyan's first career sacrifice fly.

Two batters later Jill Robertson walked and Gomez rifled her sixth double of the season deep into left center field clearing the bases and pushing the Cajuns lead to 6-0.

North Texas changed pitchers in the fifth inning bringing in Monte for Fowler who had already pitched the 10 previous innings of the day's doubleheader. Monte allowed a one-out infield single to pinch hitter Leslie Pierce then struck out Bergeaux for the second out. Pinch hitter Desi Chatman sent Monte and the Mean Green home early when she powered a two-out home run over the center field wall to give Louisiana the necessary runs to run rule NT.

Chatman's two-out RBI were the Ragin' Cajuns' sixth and seventh two-our RBI of the game. Louisiana ended the weekend series collecting 16 two-out RBI to increase its season total in the situation to 101.

No. 14 Louisiana will be back in action on Wednesday, April 27 as the Ragin' Cajuns travel to Thibodaux, La., for a 4 p.m. doubleheader with Nicholls State. The twinbill is the makeup of a pair of rained out games on April 6 and will serve as the Cajuns' final non-conference games of the regular season.

LOUISIANA SI