Blue Raiders turn out the lights on Ragin' Cajuns post season Sunbelt title quest

[NewsCopy]

MIAMI - Midway through Friday night's late game at the Sun Belt Conference Baseball Championships, a campus-wide power surge killed the lights at Florida International's University Park Field.

It was almost fitting, because Middle Tennessee's Blue Raiders had by that point killed off any hopes that Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns had of winning the league tournament.

Time and again in the first four innings, the Cajuns mounted threats, only to watch as the Raider defense turned double plays time and time again and stranded UL baserunners in scoring position.

That, and the Cajuns' inability to get timely hits, eventually resulted in a 7-5 loss to the Raiders that eliminated top-seeded UL from the double-elimination event at about 12:15 a.m. on Saturday.

Middle Tennessee (32-22) advanced to today's 11 a.m. (CDT) championship game against South Alabama, which ended New Orleans' run with a 14-6 win in Friday's late afternoon game. The winner of that game earns the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

The Cajuns (47-17), meanwhile, are assured of a spot in the NCAA's as an at-large selection and will learn their fate Monday morning when the 16-regional, 64-team bracket is announced.

UL had survived into the Friday late game with a 6-4 11-inning victory over Western Kentucky after splitting games on the tournament's first two days. UL rallied from a 4-3 deficit to win that game, and staged another rally late Friday night with two eighth-inning runs, the second on Josh Landry's single that plated Jameson Parker.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

[JMV JustMyView]

Now at least 2 sun belt teams will make the ncaa regional tourney.