University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
Southern Miss
Middle Game of Series Goes to USM
3/6/2010 11:30:00 PM | Baseball
Southern Miss received an eight-inning outing from its starting pitcher for the second consecutive game and clinched the series with Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns by claiming a 6-1 decision on Saturday afternoon at M.L. "Tigue' Moore Field.
Louisiana (5-4) will attempt to salvage a win out of the series when the two teams close out the weekend set on Sunday at 1 p.m. The Ragin' Cajuns will send lefthander T.J. Geith (1-0, 1.50 ERA) to the mound while the Golden Eagles (7-3) will counter with freshman Geoffrey Thomas (0-1, 7.88 ERA).
Scott Copeland tossed eight innings for the Golden Eagles and scattered seven Ragin' Cajuns hits. He collected the victory as he outdueled UL's Justin Robichaux who was lifted after 4 2/3 innings.
Matt Goulas produced the Cajuns' run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. Kyle Olasin topped the squad with two hits.
Taylor Walker produced a team-high three hits for USM. Travis Graves collected a pair of RBI.
The Ragin' Cajuns losing streak is now at three games. USM pushed its winning streak to three games.
The Golden Eagles put up the first multiple-run inning of the series scoring twice in the second inning.
Copeland then began a string of eight consecutive batters retired in the Cajuns' half of the second inning as he protected the USM lead.
Greg Fontenot prevented USM from increasing the lead in the top of the fifth. He fielded a sharp grounder off the bat of Walker and fired a strike to Keefer at home to force out Tyler Koelling attempting to score.
Kameron Brunty singled through the right side - the Golden Eagles' eighth hit of the day - advancing Walker to third. That closed the book on Robichaux as Joey Satriano entered in relief. Satriano coaxed a fly ball out from Travis Creel to keep USM off the scoreboard.
Louisiana had a pair of base runners in its half of the fifth following a single up the middle by Trask Switzenberg and bunt single from Alex Fuselier. Fontenot advanced both runners up a base and into scoring position, but Brian Bowman grounded out to Copeland for the third out.
The teams swapped single runs in the sixth. Goulas' sacrifice fly scored Olasin with Louisiana's first run of the day which cut the Golden Eagles' lead to 3-1.
A home run in the top of the seventh off the bat of Walker upped the USM advantage to 4-1. The Golden Eagles tacked on a pair of unearned runs in the ninth following a Dillon Guillory two-out error, to finish off the scoring.
-- Ragin' Cajuns --
