Equation simple one for Cajuns

It's pretty simple for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team beginning tonight.

One win, and the Cajuns assure themselves of a share of the Sun Belt Conference title and the No. 1 seed for next week's Sun Belt postseason tournament.

Two wins, and they win the league regular-season title outright.

They don't necessarily have to win one or two when the Cajuns (44-13, 15-6 Sun Belt) take on Western Kentucky.

They actually don't have to win any at all. They could back in if New Mexico State slips up once or twice.

But that's not how Cajun coach Tony Robichaux sees it, heading into tonight's 6 p.m. opener of a three-game series.

"This team has put itself in position to be playing for something on the last weekend of the season," Robichaux said. "You want the last weekend to mean something, and for us it does. So why should we now put ourselves in position of hoping somebody else does what should be our job?"

The Cajuns control their own destiny in the series at WKU's Nick Denes Field, one that also includes a 2 p.m. Saturday and a 1 p.m. Sunday game, by winning every Sun Belt series this season. If they win two of three this weekend, they'll sweep the league - something they've never done.

Even in the 1997 season when UL went 22-5 and won its other outright Sun Belt title, they dropped two of three at Lamar. In the 2000 College World Series season, they lost three league series.

Because of those series wins, they hold tiebreakers over both teams that could possibly catch them, NMSU and USA. New Mexico State has to go to Middle Tennessee for three games, while South Alabama has completed conference play and could only tie for the title (and be the No. 2 seed) if the Cajuns lose all three games.

Western Kentucky isn't in the title chase. In fact, the Hilltoppers (18-34, 6-15 Sun Belt) are chasing only a spot in the tournament, and those chances are iffy at best. WKU must win one more game this weekend than Arkansas-Little Rock does in UALR's home series against Florida International, or the 'Toppers finish in ninth place and are the odd-man out of the eight-team tournament that begins Wednesday in Miami.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com