BASEBALL OPENS SEASON WITH DOUBLEHEADER SWEEP

CAJUN BASEBALL SWEEPS LOUISIANA TECH ... April 30, 2000

LAFAYETTE – Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun baseball team continued its offensive outburst this weekend, rapping out a season-high-tying 17 hits on the way to a 12-3 victory over Louisiana Tech at M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field on Sunday.

The Cajuns (37-11, 18-6 SBC) maintain their 3.5-game lead over second-place New Orleans with only six games left to play and record their 38th straight win at their home facility dating back to last season. Louisiana-Lafayette also wins its 17th straight game over the Bulldogs.

Ryan Gill led the way for Louisiana-Lafayette, going 4-for-5 with two runs and two RBI. In three games against the Bulldogs, the Baton Rouge native went 10-for-14 (.714) while leading the team with three doubles, seven RBIs and a .929 slugging percentage.

Nathan Nelson, Tommy Clark, Will Hawkins and Jess Poche each went 2-for-5 for the Cajuns with Clark topping the squad with five RBIs, thanks to a grand-slam home run in the fourth inning.

"That's what we need out of guys. When you play on the weekend, there is nothing else to save it for. The weekend is conference and you need guys to step up and play big," head coach Tony Robichaux said. "We did that today and we need to do that next weekend at South Alabama.

"We got the big hits that we needed. Instead of the one- or two-run innings, we put up some big numbers with the five and the four. We're very pleased. We felt that we were coming of it, and we're glad the hitters had a big weekend."

The Cajuns batted around in the second inning on the way to five runs on the scoreboard. After back-to-back singles from Will Hawkins and Jess Poche, Rick Haydel gave the Cajuns a 1-0 lead with a double to left field. Steven Feehan walked to load the bases, but Jarvis Larry cleared them in a hurry with a triple to right center. Ryan Gill then lifted a sacrifice fly to right to score Larry and cap the scoring.

That would be more than enough for Cajun starter Nick Webb, who won his fourth straight decision – all in Sun Belt play – after tossing 5.1 innings with eight hits, three runs and seven strikeouts, his fifth straight game with at least seven strikeouts. Senior reliever Trey Bullinger posted his fourth save of the year, scattering four hits in 3.2 innings.

Louisiana Tech (21-24, 9-13 SBC) rapped out 12 hits of its own, with the three-hit efforts of Tim Meadows and Fraser Inouye leading the way.

Inouye cut into the Cajun lead in the fourth inning with an RBI-single that plated Meadows.

In the sixth inning, the Bulldogs struck for two runs on Eric Gashel's two-RBI single and appeared to threaten for more with runners on first and second and only one out, but Cajun reliever Trey Bullinger forced Craig Montgomery into a ground ball double play to end the threat.

The Cajuns added another run in the seventh on Tommy Clark's RBI-single and two more in the eighth, thanks to Bret Bailey's RBI-double and Gill's RBI-groundout.

Louisiana-Lafayette now takes a break from midweek games and won't return to action until its faces South Alabama in Mobile, Ala., in a three-game Sun Belt Conference series starting at 6 p.m. Friday. Earlier this season, the Cajuns swept the Jaguars for the first time in school history at Lafayette on March 17-19.

University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics

BASEBALL OPENS SEASON WITH DOUBLEHEADER SWEEP

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