University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
Nicholls State
Cajuns Road Woes Continue in Loss at Nicholls State
3/11/2003 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
THIBODAUX - Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns baseball team drops their eighth straight game in a 15-5 loss here at Ray E. Didier Field against the Nicholls State Colonels. The Cajuns drop to 5-15 on the season and continue to search for their first road win of the season, while Nicholls State improves to 13-8 overall on the year.
Nicholls State opened the game with a big six run inning off Cajun freshman starter Brandt Sanders. All of the runs against Sanders came after a Cajun infield error and were unearned. Sanders lasted just 2/3 of an inning and was relived by Thad Montgomery. Third baseman David Tano's grand slam homerun highlighted the inning for the Colonels.
Montgomery ran into problems of his own in the second inning as the Colonels scored seven more runs in the inning to take control of the game and go up 13-0 after just two innings. Montgomery was replaced by Danny McMurtry with one out in the inning. Six of the seven runs in the inning were credited to Montgomery.
The Cajuns added one run in the third inning and three more in the fourth to cut the deficit to nine runs. First baseman Phillip Hawke picked up his team leading 13th RBI of the season in the third inning and shortstop Dallas Morris hit his first homerun of the season to score three more runs in the fourth inning.
Nicholls State scored another run in the bottom half of the fourth inning to go up 14-4. Both teams traded runs off each other in the eighth inning to put NSU up by a final score of 15-5.
David Tano led a Colonel offense that had 18 hits on the night by going 4 for 5 with a grand slam homerun and 5 RBI. Louisiana-Lafayette shortstop Dallas Morris went 2 for 4 with a 3-run homerun to lead the Cajuns.
Dustin Atkins (3-3) picked up the win for Nicholls State after holding the Cajuns to four runs (one earned) on seven hits through the first five innings. Brandt Sanders (0-1) suffered his first loss for the Cajuns.
UL Lafayette falls to 5-15 on the season and has now lost eight straight games for the first time since 1988. The Cajuns will attempt to end the eight game skid when they host Illinois-Chicago for a three game series at home beginning at 6:35 pm this Friday night.
-Ragin' Cajuns-
