University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
Middle Tennessee
Cajuns End SBC Tournament With 10-2 Loss To Middle Tennessee
5/23/2003 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Friday, May 23, 2003
Updated SBC Tournament Bracket & Results
LAFAYETTE -Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns baseball team became the third team to get eliminated from the 2003 Dodge Sun Belt Conference Tournament here at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field with a 10-2 loss to the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. After winning two straight elimination games against New Mexico State and Arkansas-Little Rock the Ragin' Cajuns fell prey to a hot hitting Middle Tennessee team in the afternoon game on Friday.
UL Lafayette (30-30) dropped both games against Middle Tennessee (32-25) in the tournament after taking two of three here at Moore Field during the regular season. MT used errorless defense and a splendid pitching performance to knock the host Cajuns out of the tournament.
The Blue Raiders jumped all over Cajun starter Jeff Martinez with six runs in the first four innings to take control early. Martinez suffered his first career loss after giving up six hits and five earned runs in 3.1 innings. Middle Tennessee left-hander John Williams held the Cajuns to just two runs on seven hits for the complete game victory.
MT scored single runs in the opening two innings before the Ragin' Cajuns tied the game against Williams with two runs in the third. Ray Dees hit his second homerun of the season to drive in two runs to tie the game at 2-2 following a Jason Wilson single.
Middle Tennessee responded with four runs in the fourth inning. MT third baseman Brett Carroll hit a two-run homer off of Martinez to get the scoring started in the inning. Martinez gave up a walk, double, and a run scoring single to Billy Beachum before being replaced by Thad Montgomery. A sacrifice fly by Chuck Ackers scored another run to give the Blue Raiders a 6-2 lead.
Blue Raider pitcher John Williams held the Cajun bats hitless until for the next four innings until two singles in the ninth to secure the victory for his team.
MT blew the game wide open with another four run inning in the sixth. A Billy Beachum triple and a Jeff Akers homerun scored all four runs in the inning.
Williams improved to 3-4 on the year for Middle Tennessee, while Martinez fell to 1-1 on the season for the Ragin' Cajuns. The Cajuns committed three errors and managed just seven hits against the Blue Raider lefty.
“We had so much life sucked out of us throughout the season after battling back to get to .500 after a 7-20 start that the effort it took to come back from the loser's bracket just caught up with us”, stated Ragin' Cajun head coach Tony Robichaux. “The one thing that this team never did was quit. They put themselves just one game away from championship Saturday and never gave up all year.”
-Ragin' Cajuns-
