Cajuns Ready to Host 2014 NCAA Regionals at Lamson Park

2014 NCAA Lafayette Regional
Date: May 16-18
Location: Lafayette, La. (Lamson Park)
Radio: ESPN 1420 (Steve Peloquin & Bobby Neveaux)
Live Stats: www.NCAA.com
Stream: www.ESPN3.com

Lafayette Regional Central

Game Notes

Lafayette Regional Schedule
Friday
Game 1 - Texas vs. Mississippi State - 3 p.m.
Game 2 - No. 6 Louisiana vs. Texas Southern - 6 p.m.

Saturday
Game 3 - G1 Winner vs. G2 Winner - 12 p.m.
Game 4 - G1 Loser vs. G2 Loser - 3 p.m.
Game 5 - G4 Winner vs. G3 Loser - 6 p.m.

Sunday
Game 6 - G3 Winner vs. G5 Winner - 12 p.m.
Game 7 - If necessary - 3 p.m. or 35 minutes after G6

PostSeason Odds & Ends
- The Ragin' Cajuns are 60-48 all-time in the NCAA tournament, going 4-2 last season, sweeping the Baton Rouge Regional and going 1-2 in the Ann Arbor Super Regional.
- The Cajuns are 50-31 in the NCAA Regionals, and haven't missed a regional tournament since 1998.
- The last time the Cajuns hosted the NCAA Regionals was 2012, when they went 3-0, defeating Mississippi Valley State 8-0, and Stanford twice, 9-3, and 6-2.
- Sixth is the highest the Ragin' Cajuns have been seeded since the Super Regional format started.
- The Cajuns have advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals in three of the last four seasons.

What's On Tap? For the second time in the last three seasons, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns will play host to the NCAA Regional Tournament, hosting Texas, Mississippi State, and Texas Southern, in the opening rounds of the 2014 NCAA Softball Tournament. The Cajuns are making their 24th appearance in the tourney and have not failed to make the tournament since 1998, advancing to their 16th-straight NCAA Regional tournament. The Cajuns will open the regional with Texas Southern on Friday at 6 p.m.
Scouting the Opponents: The Cajuns will host Texas Southern, Texas and Mississippi State for the 2014 Lafayette Regional, taking on Texas Southern in the first round.

Texas Southern
Texas Southern is led by a group of four batters batting above .400, and the seventh-best team batting average in the nation. Chelsea Guenther and Princess Daniels each rank 6th and 7th in the nation with respective batting averages of .471, and 463. Joining Guenther and Daniels in the +.400 club is Thomasina Garza and Jessica Miller, each batting .408 and .405 respectively. Last season, Garza was the NCAA batting champion, finishing the season with a .485 clip. In the circle they are led by Madison Staton, with an 11-6 record and a 3.67 ERA, but have six players with at least one start on the season.

Texas
The Longhorns are no stranger to the Cajuns, defeating them twice this year by scores of 10-7 and 7-3 at Lamson Park in the Louisiana Classics. The Longhorns boast the Big 12 Player of the Year and all-region first team Taylor Thom, and the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, pitcher Tiarra Davis, along with a trio of all-Big 12 selections in Brejae Washington, Devon Tunning and Mandy Ogle. Davis got the first win of her career against the Cajuns earlier this season, and went on to win 18 games, going 18-12 with a 2.35 ERA, appearing in a team-high 41 games. Thom finished the regular season with a .386 batting average, hitting nine homers and driving in 42 runs, while coming around to score 54 runs.

Mississippi State
The Bulldogs are making their 11th appearance in the NCAA tournament and are traveling to a Sun Belt school for the second straight regional, going 1-2 in the 2013 Mobile Regional last season. The Bulldogs are led by senior pitcher Allison Owen. Owen is 18-11 on the season with a 3.00 ERA, and is one of three pitchers with 19-or-more appearances on the season. Offensively, MSU is led by freshman Caroline Steitz. Steitz is hitting a team-high .350 with an SEC-best, 19 doubles, and a .633 slugging percentage.

All-Region Selections: The Cajuns put four players on the NFCA All-Central Region team, with Christina Hamilton and Lexie Elkins named first-team and Natalie Fernandez and Haley Hayden making second team. All four of them are named to their first-ever All-Region team, with the first-team being made-up of players from Baylor, Oklahoma, Jacksonville State, Texas and Texas Tech, along with Louisiana. Last season, the Cajuns had three players named to the All-Region teams in Nerissa Myers, Briana Cherry and Sarah Draheim. Cherry and Draheim went on to earn All-American distinctions.

Compiling the Accolades: On top of their conference-best seven selections to the All-Sun Belt team, the Ragin' Cajuns won three of the four major awards at the Annual Family Night, with Christina Hamilton winning Pitcher of the Year, Lexie Elkins winning Player of the Year and head coach Michael Lotief winning coach of the year. Elkins and Hamilton were joined by Natalie Fernandez, Haley Hayden, and Shellie Landry on the All-SBC First Team, and Shelbi Redfearn and Kelsey Vincent earned All-SBC Second Team honors.

The Week That Was: The Ragin' Cajuns went 3-1 en route to their 12th Sun Belt Conference championship in school history, this past weekend at Lamson Park. The Cajuns opened the weekend with a thrilling 5-3 victory over WKU, winning in walk-off fashion, with a grand slam from Shellie Landry. South Alabama used a pair of late-inning two-run homers in the 7th and 8th innings to sink the Cajuns on Friday, 4-2, forcing Louisiana to take on ULM for the rights to face South Alabama again in the Championship round. The Warhawks jumped ahead 5-2 early in the game, but the Cajuns used four runs in the sixth and five in the seventh inning, to defeat the Warhawks, 14-6. The Cajuns took an early 1-0 lead with a solo home run from Haley Hayden in the Championship game, but South Alabama answered immediately with a run in the bottom of the first to knot the game at one. Pitchers Christina Hamilton and Farish Beard buckled down after that, with four shutout innings, before the Cajuns broke the tie in the sixth. Shelbi Redfearn hit a three-run homer to break the tie, and give the Cajuns their 12th Sun Belt Conference championship and an automatic bid into the 2014 NCAA Tournament, their 24th trip to the regionals in school history.

More About the WKU Walkoff: The Cajuns defeated WKU in walk-off fashion to win their first round game in the Sun Belt Conference Champions. The Cajuns entered the inning, trailing 3-1, and got two quick ground outs to start the inning. Haley Hayden gave the Cajuns extra life with a single, and Lexie Elkins followed that up with a single as well, taking second base as Hayden advanced to third. That brought up Samantha Walsh, the Cajuns' hero in two prior late-inning games. Walsh walked with first base open, loading the bases for Shellie Landry. Landry fell down 0-2 in the count before taking back-to-back balls, and sent the fifth pitch of the at-bat deep into the bleachers, sending the Cajuns home with the 5-3 win.

Walk it Out: The Ragin' Cajuns have made it interesting at Lamson Park in the second half of the season, winning with three walk-off homers, including a grand slam from Shellie Landry against WKU in the Conference Championship. Samantha Walsh has the other two walk-off homers, a solo home run against McNeese State in April, and against ULM in the final weekend of the season. Walsh's walkoff's came in back-to-back home games, despite being three weeks apart.

A Grand Time at the Park: The Cajuns have hit three grand slams in the past 15 games, with Shellie Landry hitting two and Samantha Walsh hitting the other. Landry's second grand slam came in the biggest moment, with two strikes and two outs in the seventh inning against WKU. Her first came against Troy. Walsh hit hers later in the SBC Tournament, helping put away the conference semifinal game against ULM.

Another 40-Win Season for Lotief: The Cajuns won their 40th game of the season against ULM in game two of the doubleheader on May 3, marking the 12th straight season that head coach Michael Lotief has guided the Cajuns to 40-or-more wins, a feat he has never failed to achieve. Lotief has also led the Cajuns to four 50-win seasons in 2005, 2008, 2011 & 2012, and a 60-win season in 2004. The last time the Cajuns failed to win 40-or-more games was the 1991 season, when they went 33-10, but were still selected to the NCAA Regional Field.

Clinching the Sun Belt: The Ragin' Cajuns went swept their Sun Belt series against UT Arlington, effectively clinching the Sun Belt Conference for their 12th Sun Belt Regular Season title in school history, and their 16th Conference Championship between the Sun Belt (2000-present) and the Southland (1983-1988). The Cajuns have failed to win the regular season title in just two seasons since joining the Sun Belt, 2007 and 2013, advancing to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid each season.

Getting Offensive: The Cajuns boast the 13th-most potent offense in the NCAA this season, averaging 6.5 runs per game. That mark tops the Sun Belt, with Georgia State coming in second with 6.57 runs per game. The Cajuns run output can be credited to the nations second-best 1.49 home runs per game and their 12th-ranked slugging percentage (.519).

We've Got the Power: The Ragin' Cajuns have out-homered their opponents 79-to-38 this season, en route to the nations second-best 1.49 home-runs per game, behind Arizona (1.85). The Cajuns have gotten home run support from the meat of their lineup, with the 2-3-4-5-6-7 hitters in the order combining for 68 home runs on the season. The group is led by Lexie Elkins (18), and Haley Hayden (15), batting third and second in the lineups, respectively. The Cajuns finished the regular season with a 20-home run lead on the rest of the Sun Belt, with Georgia State coming in second with 59. The Cajuns are one home run shy of becoming the fifth team under Michael Lotief to hit 80-or-more home runs, and just second since they hit 102 in 2006, with the other time coming last season when they hit 88.

Quadruple-Double of Homers: The Ragin' Cajuns have four players with 10-or-more homers in Lexie Elkins (18), Haley Hayden (15), Shelbi Redfearn (12), and Samantha Walsh (10). The Cajuns have now achieved that feat in back-to-back seasons, marking just the second time in the last decade that the Cajuns had four players hit double-digit homers.

Fernandez Among Actives: Here is where Cajuns senior, Natalie Fernandez 's career stats rank among active players:

	##	D-I	Overall	D-I Leader	##
Games Played	229	25th	32nd	Destinee Martinez, Oklahoma	242
Batting Average	.399	26th	--	Karley Wester, Notre Dame	.460
Runs Scored	189	5th	13th	Jennifer Gilbert, Ball State	215
Hits	247	14th	24th	Jill Barrett, Tulsa	312

Wallace Among Actives: Here is where Cajuns junior, Jordan Wallace 's career stats rank among active players:

	##	D-I	Overall	D-I Leader	##
Victories	73	24th	29th	Hannah Rodgers, Florida	120
Strikeouts	685	25th	36th	Whitney Canion, Baylor	1,411
Strikeouts/7 inn.	8.83	6th	20th	Miranda Kramer, IPFW	10.14
Shutouts	16	44th	- -	Sara Moulton, Minnesota	47

What's Next? The winner of the Lafayette Regional will advance to the 2014 Super Regional rounds, taking on the winner of the Phoenix Regional, hosted by the University of Arizona. If the two regional hosts win their respective regional, the 2014 Super Regionals will be played at Lamson Park next weekend.

-- www.RaginCajuns.com --

Cajuns Ready to Host 2014 NCAA Regionals at Lamson Park

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