With two conference series in the books for Louisiana Ragin Cajuns softball, the team is sitting pretty with a 23-3 record and are 6-0 in conference play. That being said, head coach Gerry Glasco isn’t resting on his laurels and knows what that the margin of error is slim if they want to host a regional.
“I think we have to win almost every single game. We can afford to lose maybe one depending who it’s to.” Glasco said on Monday afternoon, “There are teams we can’t afford to lose a game to. I think we have to get to the end of the regular season with four losses.” It’s the struggles of being a mid-major program. Ask Texas State how it went for them last season after winning the Sun Belt Conference title and having to travel out to Los Angeles with a 43-16 record.
Think about that for a second; one game could very well determine if the Cajuns are hosting a regional at Yvette Girouard Field at Lamson Park or headed back to Tiger Park for a third straight season. It’s safe to say that no Cajuns fan wants to see their team back in Baton Rouge anytime soon be it in a regional or otherwise after the way last season ended. One of the big reasons why is because of the struggle that is scheduling Power 5 programs as a mid-major.
“It’s because of the degree of difficulty of our schedule.” Glasco said, “When we lost the Florida State series, it was something that couldn’t be avoided and it’s just part of being a mid-major, but that was a huge loss to us. We tried to recover by going to Oklahoma and then we got weather and we lost that game.”
What makes losing these games even tougher is that it affects their standing in terms of the RPI. After sweeping the Troy Trojans last weekend at home, Louisiana is currently 18th in the RPI standings. Even with those missed opportunities to improve the RPI going away, Glasco wishes he could schedule better competition in the midweek.
“It is what it is, even right now I’m making phone calls, I’d love to schedule a midweek game with an SEC school but there’s just not a lot of incentive for them to do that,” Glasco said.
That being said, Cajuns softball will need to be dominant like they were against Troy last weekend if they want to improve their current standing on a national scale.
-Clint Domingue