The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns baseball team fell 3-2 to the Southern Miss Golden Eagles on Saturday afternoon at Russo Park. That evens the series at one game a piece heading into tomorrow’s rubber match.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
Fresh off of Kyle DeBarge’s heroics to help the Cajuns win game one last night, Louisiana sent Chase Morgan to the mound on Saturday. He began with a clean first inning, retiring the Golden Eagles in order.
Southern Miss countered with right-hander Niko Mazza on the mound. Trey LaFleur did hit a one-out double, but he was stranded there as Mazza worked out of the trouble to keep the game 0-0 after one.
The Golden Eagle offense got to work in the second. After a leadoff single, Nick Monistere delivered an RBI triple to deep center field. Morgan was able to get back-to-back strikeouts after that to limit the damage and keep it at 1-0 in favor of USM.
The third inning saw the Golden Eagles use a two-out rally to add another. After a double play erased a leadoff base runner, Morgan allowed a double off the wall. Then, Slade Wilks delivered a two-out RBI single to make it 2-0 Golden Eagles.
After that run, both pitchers seemed settled in. They would match each other, posting zeroes in the fourth, fifth, and sixth frames. Louisiana loaded the bases once during that stretch but could not find any offense out of the situation.
Morgan ended up going six innings for the Cajuns, allowing just the two runs in the early stages. Mazza, however, was even better. He went seven innings, allowing no runs.
In the eighth inning, Southern Miss went to the bullpen. The Cajuns promptly put two runners on, and then moved them to third on a wild pitch. With one out, last night’s hero, DeBarge, stepped up and came through again. His two-run single tied the game at two.
LP Langevin, who got the save last night, pitched the top of the ninth. He hit one batter, and eventually Gabe Broadus singled in a run to give USM the 3-2 lead.
The Cajuns got the leadoff batter aboard in the ninth. However, they left him stranded at second and Southern Miss held on for the one-run win to eve the series.
BIG NUMBER: 7
Niko Mazza gave USM seven shutout innings on the mound today. That was a big lift, and this time the bullpen did just enough to allow Southern Miss to hold on and even the series.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Niko Mazza
The Louisiana lineup has now struggled with back-to-back USM starting pitchers. This time, they could not score against Mazza. He kept the Cajuns lineup off balance and used some help from the wind blowing in as well.
UP NEXT: Louisiana and Southern Miss will wrap up their three-game series tomorrow afternoon at Russo Park at 1:00 PM.