Heading into Thursday night’s matchup it seemed inevitable that the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns (26-4) would make history against Arkansas State (10-19, 5-11 Sun Belt). However, the road to victory wasn’t an easy one with an early injury to Johnathan Stove seemingly sidelining one of the Cajuns stars for the night.
It wasn’t enough to derail them though as they were able to hang on and came away with an 85-74 victory.
After an early back-and-forth, it looked like the Red Wolves were going to play spoiler after a slow start offensively by the Cajuns gave Arkansas State a 20-17 lead with 10:45 left in the first half. Their lead didn’t last long though thanks to the Cajuns going on a 12-2 run to make it 35-30 with 4:01 left. They extended their lead to 12 points at the break thanks to Frank Bartley putting up 11 of his 18 points in the first half.
The Cajuns came out of the gates in the second half strong with a 14-2 run, putting them up by 24 points with 14:27 left in regulation. Louisiana kept the Red Wolves out of reach, but it wasn’t enough as the Cajuns got to a historic 26th win in the regular season with yet another double-digit win in conference play.
The Cajuns will look to make it a perfect 15-0 inside the friendly confines of the Cajundome on Saturday when they host the Little Rock Trojans (6-24, 3-14 Sun Belt) with tipoff set for 7 pm.
-Clint Domingue