University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
* Western Kentucky (DH)
Three-Peat: Cajuns Clinch Another Sun Belt Crown
5/4/2004 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Sunday, May 4, 2003
BOWLING
GREEN, Ky. – Never underestimate the heart of a
champion.
A three-game Sun Belt losing streak near the end of the season and an offensive performance below average had many raising questions of what might be wrong.
For the 22nd-ranked Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns softball team, they knew what the answer was. There was nothing wrong at all.
A day after a subpar offensive showing on the field, the offense was alive and well here Sunday afternoon at the WKU Softball Field and ended any doubts of a late season meltdown by pounding out 15 runs and 19 hits en route to a 10-1 (6 innings), 5-0 sweep of host Western Kentucky.
With the sweep, the Cajuns clinched their third straight Sun Belt Conference regular season championship and the No. 1 seed for the upcoming Sun Belt Conference Tournament.
With the 5-0 second game victory, the Cajuns clinched the 900th win in program history. UL Lafayette, which began playing softball in 1981, now sports an all-time record of 900-281 in 22-plus seasons.
UL Lafayette remains the only champion that the Sun Belt Conference softball league has ever known in its three seasons of existence.
The conference tournament will be held in Bowling Green Thursday-Saturday, May 8-10 at the WKU Softball Field. There the Cajuns will defend their three straight SBC Tournament titles and look to make it four in a row.
In game one, the Cajuns wasted no time in making their presence known as UL Lafayette pushed across three quick runs with no outs recorded. The Cajuns wound up with a four-run first before all was said and done.
Junior shortstop and Lafayette native Jill Robertson got the hit parade going with a leadoff double to left center field. Senior All-American Becky McMurtry then followed with a single to left center and the Cajuns all of a sudden had runners on the corners two batters into the game.
Freshman
Danyele Gomez brought home Robertson with the first run
of the day with a single just under the glove of WKU
third baseman Dana Rey and would advance to second on a
fielding error by Rey on the relay throw back into the
infield.
Brittany Bryant continued the Cajuns assault on WKU ace pitcher Allison Silver when she smacked a 2-RBI double into deep left center field to score McMurtry and Gomez for a 3-0 lead.
Summar Lapeyrouse scored Bryant later in the inning with an RBI single through the left side of the infield for a 4-0 lead. UL Lafayette would make it through the batting order as nine-hole hitter Crystal George ended the inning popping up at second.
Western Kentucky struck for its lone run of the game in the bottom half of the first on a Kristalyn Smith RBI bunt single.
Riley Garcia led off the inning with a double off of UL Lafayette starter Brooke Mitchell, the fifth double she allowed this weekend, and advanced to third on a passed ball and scored an unearned run on Smith's bunt single.
The
Cajuns added three more runs in the third inning to
increase their lead to 7-1.
Lapeyrouse drove in her second run of the game with an RBI single to right center field that scored Tiffany Grayson for a 5-1 advantage. Lapeyrouse would then pull off the double steal with Lauren Castle, who was on third base, and advanced to third on the rundown with Castle.
Castle would eventually score to make it 6-1. Lapeyrouse went home when WKU catcher Samantha Hansen made a throw back to third base and would score when Hansen dropped the ball at the plate on the throw back to home by Rey. Lapeyrouse's run made it 7-1 Cajuns.
Louisiana-Lafayette would add three more runs in the top of the sixth inning keyed by RBI singles from McMurtry and Gomez to make it 10-1 and give the Cajuns the necessary lead to enforce the eight-run rule.
For Louisiana-Lafayette the top three hitters each went 2-for-4 and combined for four RBI. Gomez led the way with three RBI to increase her season total to 55 – tops in the Sun Belt Conference.
Bryant
(1-for-4) and Lapeyrouse (2-for-3) each had two RBI as
the Cajuns offense was more than enough support for
Mitchell in the circle.
Mitchell went the distance allowing just three hits while striking out seven batters. The Pasadena, Texas, native notched her 20th win of the season and increased her season strikeout total to 217 which is just 39 strikeouts shy of the school single-season mark of 256 set by Cheryl Longeway in 1995.
In game two, redshirt freshman Afton Thoms notched her second complete-game shutout of the Hilltoppers and the Cajuns scored all five runs on three home runs.
McMurtry homered twice, both two-run shots, to increase her season home run total to 13. Bryant had a solo home run for her eighth home run of the season.
The three home runs increased the Cajuns team total to 70 – six shy of the school record of 76 set last season.
Thoms
allowed just four hits and improve her record to 12-2.
Adrienne Lathrop took the loss for WKU and fell to 14-10. She allowed five runs on eight hits.
Louisiana-Lafayette will next play at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 8 in the quarterfinals of the Sun Belt Tournament in Bowling Green against the winner of the Western Kentucky-New Mexico State opening round game.
-- Ragin' Cajuns --
