Baseball: Red-hot Cajuns Await Nicholls State - Five Game Week On Tap athleticnetwork.net/site.php?pageID=37&newsID=16637 Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, March 18, 2014 ____________________ Nicholls State at No. 5 UL WHAT: Two-game midweek non-conference set, with one game at UL tonight and one at Nicholls State on Wednesday night. WHERE: M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field tonight, Ray E. Didier Field in Thibodaux on Wednesday night. WHEN: 6 p.m. both nights. RECORDS: UL 17-2; NSU 10-10. RADIO: KPEL 1420 AM with Jay Walker. TV: None PITCHING MATCHUPS: Tonight: UL senior LHP Ryan Wilson (1-0, 2.79 ERA) vs. junior LHP Mike Hanchar (0-1, 1.29 ERA) Wednesday night: UL TBA vs. senior RHP Brandon Jackson (1-1, 2.2 ERA) ABOUT THE CAJUNS: UL has won seven straight, including last weekend’s three-game Sun Belt-opening series sweep at UL Monroe. … SS Blake Trahan is hitting a team-high .373; 2B Jace Conrad has a team-high 20 RBIs. … The Cajuns lead the Sun Belt in RBI with 130, runs scored (141), ERA (2.30) and fielding percentage (.981). … UL leads the all-time series 67-51-1 and has won 15 of the last 19 meetings. ABOUT THE OPPONENT: After losing a midweek game against LSU, Nicholls State won a Southland Conference-opening weekend series win against Houston Baptist 2-1. … Leo Vargas hits a team-high .314 for the Colonels with 22 hits and 16 runs scored, while Tyler Duplantis has a team-high 15 RBIs. … The Colonels split two meetings with the Cajuns last season and won the last meeting 4-3 last April. _______________ With two midweek games this week and injuries to a couple of key starting pitchers, the strength of the No. 5 UL baseball team’s bullpen should get quite a test this week. Usual No. 3 starter Greg Milhorn (2-1) didn’t throw in Sunday’s 21-2 win at UL Monroe due to an oblique (stomach) muscle pull sustained one week earlier against Texas Southern, and coach Tony Robichaux said the junior righty is “not gonna be ready this weekend, for sure.” After playing host to Nicholls State tonight and visiting Nicholls State on Wednesday night, UL plays its second Sun Belt Conference series this coming weekend against Georgia State. Making matters worse for the Cajuns is that the pitcher who threw in Milhorn’s place Sunday, would-be midweek starter and 2013 weekend starter Cody Boutte, is hurt now too. Robichaux said Boutte (2-0) was injured when he “took a hard ground ball back up off his foot” in Monroe, where he got the win after giving up six hits and just one run in 5.0 innings. The senior lefty had to leave Monroe on crutches. Robichaux said X-rays proved negative, and “he’s just got a bruise.” Robichaux is hopeful and somewhat confident Boutte will go Sunday against Georgia State, but it still remains to be seen if he actually can. With that in mind, the Cajuns plan to start Ryan Wilson (1-0) and have him go limited innings (probably three) tonight. Reliever Matt Plitt (1-0) also is scheduled to throw limited innings (probably three as well) tonight, leaving both available for possible weekend work, especially on Sunday if Boutte cannot pitch. UL’s starter Wednesday at Nicholls State, meanwhile, is to-be-announced, which may make that a game in which the Cajun pen will be forced to prove just how deep it is. UL’s hitters, meanwhile, are coming off a week in which they helped the Cajuns go 4-0 on the road, including a win at Tuesday followed by a three-game Sun Belt-opening series sweep of ULM in which they outscored the Warhawks 39-4. UL had 10 home runs over the weekend, including seven on Sunday alone, three of them coming on catcher Michael Strentz’s first three trips to the plate. Strentz went 5-for-5 on the day. “We caught a day where it was really conducive for hitting – if you have a good approach, and you sit in the middle of the field to opposite-field,” Robichaux said. “To turn on the ball all day was gonna be difficult because of the way the wind was approaching us, and I thought our hitters does did an exceptional job in their approach. “They (the Warhawks) really tried to spin on the ball for three days,” the Cajun coach added, “so Boutte became very effective against them (Sunday).” But that was then. This is now for the 17-2 Cajuns, who have won seven straight and 17 of their last 18. “We had a good week,” Robichaux said. “Anytime you can go 4-0 on the road that’s good. But we’ve got to press on. “Strentz’s home runs will do nothing for us (tonight) against Nicholls. So we’ve really got to let all that go, and move on forward.” LAGNIAPPE: Strentz and second baseman Jace Conrad now lead the Cajuns in homers with four each. … Senior lefty Chris Griffitt missed all of last season with a shoulder injury, but on Saturday at Monroe he threw 1.1 innings of no-hit scoreless relief with three strikeouts in his first appearance of this season. “If we can get him to throw like he did (Saturday) … that would be huge for us,” Robichaux said. “I don’t think he’ll ever come back as a starter, but, boy, to have that guy come out of the bullpen is really good.” … UL moved up one spot in Baseball America’s Top 25 poll to No. 5. The Cajuns also are No. 6 according to Collegiate Baseball, moved up to seventh in Perfect Game’s poll and are ranked No. 8 in both the USA Today coaches’ and NCBWA writers’ polls.newsID=16637
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:08:03 +0000
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