After a rough 9-1 road loss to Coastal Carolina on Friday night, Louisiana returned on Saturday to finish the series with a doubleheader. The offenses for both teams were rolling early on but slowed down in the back half of the game as the Cajuns made the comeback and won 8-6 to tie the series and set up the rubber match against the Chanticleers later in the afternoon.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
Similar to game one, the Cajuns got on the board first. Maddox Mandino was hit by a pitch and advanced to second after Kyle DeBarge hit a single to the shortstop. Duncan Pastore then brought in Mandino with a two-out single.
Coastal wasted no time scoring either. Sam Antonacci walked to begin the bottom of the first and Derek Bender doubled into right-center field. Blake Barthol gave the Chanticleers the lead with a RBI double past the right-field line. Zack Beach then made it a 3-1 game after DeBarge couldn’t carol the ball and Barthol scored the unearned run.
Louisiana made it a one-run game as Jackson Halter doubled into left field with one out and then Connor Cuff recorded the RBI double into right field.
Coastal Carolina continued to score however at the bottom of the second. Louisiana starting pitcher Chase Morgan struck out Jake Books and Dean Mihos but the top of the batting order for the Chanticleers went to work. Antonacci and Bender hit singles and Bender stole second base before Barthol hit to right field to drive in both base runners and give his team the three-run advantage.
The Cajuns put up another run in the third as DeBarge walked but got out on a fielder’s choice that allowed Lee Amedee on base. Pastore singled and Conor Higgs walked to load the bases. Jose Torres fouled out but Halter recorded a RBI after getting hit by a pitch. Cuff ended the inning however after hitting the ball to the third baseman. Bryce Shaffer replaced starting pitcher Cameron Flukey in the middle of the inning as Flukey finished the afternoon with five hits and three runs allowed in two and a third innings.
Graham Brown also put a run on the board in the third after hitting a double, advancing on a ground out by Beach, and then scored on a sac fly by Sebastian Alexander to make a 6-3 game in favor of the Chanticleers.
Luke Yuhasz came in to pinch hit for Mandino in the fourth and singled into right-center field with DeBarge doing the same right after. Both advanced on the groundout by Amedee but Pastore cut the deficit to one with a single deep into right field.
Morgan struck out two more in the fourth before getting replaced on the mound early on in the fifth by LP Langevin. Morgan’s final stats were four K’s, five earned runs, and seven hits in four innings. Langevin also struck out two in the fifth as Coastal’s Hayden Johnson came in for Shaffer at the top of the frame.
Torres hit a two-out double but Halter struck out to end the inning. Langevin however at the bottom of the seventh retired the top third of Coastal’s batting order and sent it to the top of the next inning.
Trevor Hinkel came in for Johnson after the freshman left-handed pitcher allowed a single by Cuff and walked John Taylor. Hinkel walked Yuhasz to load the bases then Cuff scored on a passed ball to tie the game and then DeBarge was intentionally walked to put runners on all three bases again. A pair of sacrifice flies into right field by Caleb Stelly and Pastore drove home Taylor and Yuhasz to give the Cajuns the 8-6 lead.
Langevin struck out two more at the bottom of the ninth to help secure the win for the Cajuns and set up the rubber match that’ll go down later in the afternoon.
BIG NUMBER: 16
There was a ton of offense from both teams, especially early on in the game when 11 runs were scored by the time it was the bottom of the fourth. Despite the heavy run count, there were 16 runners left on base; 13 from the Cajuns and three from the Chanticleers.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: LP Langevin
Langevin was a steady force on the mound as he appeared early on in the fifth inning and finished the game for the Cajuns. The junior from Quebec concluded with nine strikeouts and no hits or walks after facing 15 batters as Louisiana came back to tie the series with an 8-6 win.
UP NEXT: The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns and Coastal Carolina Chanticleers will wrap up this three-game series in about an hour after the weather turned Saturday into a double-header early in the afternoon.