Hawke Hitting Stride

[NewsCopy]

Last season, first baseman Phillip Hawke hit .329 with 10 home runs and 42 RBIs as a junior for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball squad.

This year, heading into this weekend's regular season-ending series at Western Kentucky, he's hitting .329 with 10 home runs and 42 RBIs.

So why has it seemed to be an up-and-down season for the guy that has been the Cajuns' starting first baseman since he sat foot on the campus in 2002?

Maybe it's because he's been in so many different roles. The burly Hawke has hit anywhere from third to eighth in a Cajun lineup that is stronger top to bottom than at any point in his career.

Maybe it's because as a team, the Cajuns are hitting .333, the second-highest in school history behind only a 1989 team that hit .344 against a questionable schedule.

Maybe it's because he's done it for so long that UL fans expect more, knowing that whenever they hear public address announcer T.D. Smith draw out "Phillip Haawwwwwwke," big things can happen.

"We know what he's capable of doing," Cajun coach Tony Robichaux said. "We've moved him around in the lineup a lot so that we haven't had any holes, and he's helped make us solid in a lot of those places, especially over the last few weeks."

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

[CajunProud]

He is a great hitter with a great eye, and even more important, he is a quality person who comes from a quality family.

The one thing I would like to see though is for him to come up big in pressure situations. It seems that his big hits this year have come after the game is in hand. I know he can do it, and we need for him to do it in the post season.

[JMV JustMyView]

Now is the time to step up.