home sitesearch contact fan about
home
  Submit/Update Profile  

Search the Network:




Baseball: Arizona tops UL 6-3, forces another game

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, June 6, 2016

 

636008231614994199-tda.Cajuns.vs.Arizona.finals.Regionals.06.05-1921.jpg

Kyle Clement slides into second as The Cajuns face off against Arizona in the finals of the NCAA Regional Tournament at Tigue Moore Field. June 6, 2016.(Photo: SCOTT CLAUSE/THE ADVERTISER)

 

VIDEO: Ragin’ Cajuns baseball fans get loud

 

Arizona stayed alive Monday afternoon in the NCAA Lafayette Regional at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field, beating UL 6-3 to force a deciding game at 7 p.m. Monday to determine the Regional winner.

UL, ranked No. 14 nationally, could have taken the Regional with a victory Monday afternoon.

Instead, Monday night’s winner will advance to play Mississippi State later this week at the Starkville Regional.

The loss ended 43-20 UL’s 12-game win streak, and leaves righty Wyatt Marks to start Monday night for the No. 1 seed Cajuns.

The starter for the No. 2 seed Wildcats is to-be-announced.

Arizona chased UL starter Evan Guillory early Monday afternoon, loading the bases on a single, a hit-by-pitch and a walk, then taking a 2-0 lead on Ryan Aguillar’s no-out, two-run double.

It was the second straight time that Guillory, a midweek starter moved up to weekends late in the season, has started a game and left with no outs in the first. It also happened when the sophomore exited down 4-0 against Arkansas State in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, a game UL came back to win 17-10.

Arizona picked up another run in the first, trying the double squeeze punt that UL successfully used against it on Sunday.

It didn’t fully work.

The Wildcats did push across the first run, but second baseman Stefan Trosclair threw out the trail runner from first.

Arizona added two more in the second off of Bacon, bunting in one run and scoring the other on Cody Ramer’s RBI single.

UL, meanwhile, stranded men on first and second in both the first and the second, and went down in order in the third and fourth – and had just two hits in the four innings combined.

The Cajuns did get one in the sixth, when Steven Sensley doubled, stole third and scored on a wild pitch.

The Wildcats started ace righty Nathan Bannister, who threw 7.0 innings – 96 pitches – just last Friday night in Arizona’s win over Sam Houston State.

Bannister went another 7.0 innings, threw 102 pitches and allowed just five hits and three earned runs.

He exited with no outs in the eighth, and only after giving up a single to Hunter Kasuls and a two-run home run to Joe Robbins.

The homer was Robbins’ team-high 10th of the season.

UL later loaded the bases in the eighth when, after pitching change brought Alfonso Rivas in from the outfield, Trosclair was hit, Brenn Conrad walked and Sensley walked.

Rivas was replaced by Kevin Ginkel after walking Sensley, and he promptly got Kennon Fontenot to hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

UL went three up, three down in the top of the ninth, with Arizona ending it as Kasuls grounded out 4-3.

Monday night’s game will mark the third time UL and Arizona have played in the 2016 Lafayette Regional.

The Cajuns beat the Wildcats 10-3 Sunday in a winner’s-bracket game with starter Gunner Leger and reliever Jevin Huval on the mound.