It was less than three hours before Tuesday’s game against state rival La. Tech, and Buddy Glass still wasn’t sure he’d be pitching. Such were the ravages of a virus he originally thought might be strep throat.
"We almost scratched him," said UL baseball coach Tony Robichaux. "He’d been sick for a couple of days. But we gave him all day long, and he said he could go."
Good call.
Glass stifled a heavy-hitting Bulldog attack for nearly eight innings, scattering seven hits and not allowing an earned run, and his teammates did enough offensive damage for the Cajuns to claim a 5-1 victory before 2,482 fans at Moore Field.
"I wasn’t sure all day," said Glass (3-0). "But in the pen I felt like I had everything going. I was getting some pitches up early, but around the fourth inning I started feeling pretty good."
"He just manned up and threw a gem," said Cajun designated hitter Scott Hawkins, whose three-run homer in the sixth inning provided Glass and closer Danny Farquhar some breathing room. "As sick as he was yesterday, he came out and gave us a chance to win."
Glass walked two and fanned five in a 115-pitch effort.
"He did something to us that nobody’s done," said Tech coach Wade Simoneaux. "We’ve got a lot of good hitters, and he kept it down and away from them the whole game."
UL (9-0) had picked up unearned runs in the first and the fifth innings off Tech starter Dylan Moseley (2-2), who had held the Cajuns in check in one of the Bulldogs’ two wins over UL in Ruston last season. But it was still only a 2-0 game in the sixth when Jefferies Tatford and Kolin Hatfield drew leadoff walks of reliever Landon Braud.
That brought on righthanded submariner reliever Andrew Alsup to face Hawkins, whose three-run homer was the big blow in Sunday’s 10-7 Cajun win over Illinois.
"Those guys (submariners) like to throw the fast ball in to right-handers," Hawkins said, "so I was sitting fast ball. I cheated a little and sort of opened up. When I hit it, I thought it was going a lot further than it did."
Hawkins caught up with a 2-1 offering, but on a foggy and humid night when fly balls didn’t fly far, his shot narrowly cleared the left-field fence.
Other than that, Tech’s pitching quelled a UL attack that had been averaging double-figure runs. The Cajuns managed only six hits off five Bulldog pitchers, but took advantage of five walks and three errors.
"They did a good job," Robichaux said, "but Scott put a good swing on a pitch on a tough night to get it out of the park."
Xavier Alexander’s leadoff double, an error and a ground ball provided the first-inning run, and Devon Bourque drew a leadoff walk in the fifth and scored when Jonathan Lucroy’s deep fly ball was mishandled by Tech left fielder Brian Rike.
That was all that Glass needed. He pitched out of jams in the third and the sixth when the ‘Dogs put two leadoff runners on base, and Tech’s only run came on eighth-inning singles by Brady Bascle and Brandon Hudson sandwiched around an error. Farquhar came on to get an inning-ending strikeout with the bases full and gave up a scratch single in the ninth for his third save.
