Baseball: Cajuns’ Landry scoops up Sun Belt honor

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

Josh Landry would be the first to say that he hasn’t been totally happy with his performance during the University of Louisiana baseball season.
The senior from Jeanerette and Catholic-New Iberia didn’t get his batting average over the .200 mark until early March. He was still hitting .256 as of the end of the first week of April … a big comedown for a guy who hit .330 as a sophomore and .305 as a junior as an integral part of the Cajun attack.

But he’s saved his hottest swings for late in the season, and Landry was honored for that Monday when he was named the Sun Belt Conference’s final Player of the Week honoree.

Landry went 10-for-16, a .625 clip, during the final week of the regular season, including eight hits in 11 appearances in leading UL’s sweep of Western Kentucky that locked down second place in the league and put the Cajuns one back of regular-season champion Troy.
Landry also finished with a bang, going 4-for-4 with four runs scored and four RBIs in the season finale 13-3 win over the Hilltoppers Saturday.

“It’s his senior year,” said Cajun coach Tony Robichaux, “and he said all year he did not want this to be a rebuilding year even though we lost 16 seniors last year. He didn’t want that on his watch as a senior.”

The late spurt put Landry at a season-high .308 heading into the Sun Belt Tournament which begins Wednesday in Bowling Green, Ky. The Cajuns (37-18) are the second seed in the double-elimination event and meet seventh-seeded Arkansas State (22-28) at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at Western Kentucky’s Nick Denes Field in the opening round.

Landry sports a .413 average (19-of-46) since May 1, and is one of eight regulars who’s put their averages over .300 entering the league tournament.

South Alabama’s P. J. Walters was the league’s final Pitcher of the Week after winning a complete-game, 11-strikeout effort against 25th-ranked Florida State.

ON THE ROAD: The Cajun squad arrived in Bowling Green early afternoon Tuesday, and held a workout at Nick Denes Field. The team also had a weight session at WKU, one set up through former Cajun strength coach Brad Ohrt who is now on the Western staff.
The squad will hold its official pre-tournament workout today from 1-1:50 p.m. The Sun Belt will hold its pre-tournament banquet tonight, which will include the announcement of the All-Sun Belt team.

RANKINGS: The Cajuns got their first mention this season in one of the national polls, picking up one vote in the USA Today coaches poll. Troy and South Alabama are also among the others receiving votes.

USA coach Steve Kittrell and Middle Tennessee coach Steve Peterson vote on that poll out of the Sun Belt.

RPI STUFF: The Cajuns are ranked 47th and 48th in the two most respected pseudo-RPI listings this week. UL is 47th in the WarrenNolan.com listing, with Troy 22nd and USA 35th in that list. State teams in that ranking include Tulane at No. 20 and LSU at No. 35.

In the BoydsWorld.com rankings, the Cajuns are 48th, with Troy 24th and USA 32nd. Both services still rank the Sun Belt seventh among the nation’s 30 baseball conferences in the league RPI rankings.

REGIONAL PICKS: The Cajuns are still listed in the projected NCAA Tournament field by Southeastern Baseball (sebaseball.com), but their projected site has changed.

UL had been listed as the No. 3 seed in a Houston regional one week earlier, but the web site has changed that projection to a No. 3 seed in an Austin regional. Southeastern Baseball projects Texas, Tulane, UL and TCU as the seeds in Austin, and now has Rice, Cal-Irvine, LSU and Prairie View A&M as the four seeds in Houston.

Originally published May 23, 2006