University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Faught Taken By Texas Rangers On Second Day of MLB Draft
6/8/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Faught Taken By Texas Rangers On Second Day of MLB Draft
LAFAYETTE
– University of Louisiana at Lafayette baseball senior
pitcher Austin Faught was chosen by the American League's
Texas Rangers during the second and final day of the 2004
Major League Baseball Amateur Draft Tuesday.
Faught, who did not pitch during the 2004 season as he recovered from offseason arm surgery, was selected by the Rangers in the 43rd round at the 1,279th overall pick.
Texas picked up the lefthander for the second straight season. The Rangers took Faught in the 35th round of the 2003 MLB Draft, but the Houston native chose to return to UL Lafayette for his senior season.
Faught played two seasons at the University of Houston before transferring to Louisiana-Lafayette during the summer months of 2002. As a junior, he pitched for the Cajuns in the 2003 season. As a senior in 2004, he took a medical redshirt leaving him with one more season of eligibility remaining.
The lefthander went 4-3 with a 4.08 ERA in his first season with the Cajuns in 2003. He made 14 appearances and had nine starts.
He
struck out 43 batters over 46 1/3 innings and collected the
win in the Cajuns series-clinching win over Florida
International on Easter Sunday going the distance and
allowing the Golden Panthers just four hits while fanning
seven hitters.
Before joining UL Lafayette in 2003, Faught was a Freshman All-American at UH and was an All-Conference selection for the Cougars during that freshman campaign.
His selection by the Rangers gives the Cajuns baseball program three players taken in the amateur draft, joining fellow pitchers Patrick Green (7th round, Kansas City Royals) and Kevin Ardoin (12th round, Texas Rangers) as Cajuns drafted in the 2004 MLB Amateur Draft.
Since Tony Robichaux took over the reigns at Louisiana-Lafayette in 1995 a grand total of 23 players have been drafted and at least one player has been drafted each year.
CAJUNS DRAFTED IN 2004 MLB DRAFT
Patrick Green, P, 7th round, Kansas City Royals, pick 205
Kevin Ardoin, P, 12th round, Texas Rangers, pick 391
Austin Faught, P, 43rd round, Texas Rangers, pick 1,279
