Baseball: Cajuns notch first victory – Hudspeth Fires Strike From the Mound

Baseball: Cajuns notch first victory – Hudspeth Fires Strike From the Mound

Baseball: Cajuns notch first victory – Hudspeth Fires Strike From the Mound

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • February 21, 2011

The confidence that UL lacked during key moments over its first two games of the year finally materialized just in time to avoid a season-opening sweep.

After a pair of losses to Southeast Missouri, the Ragin’ Cajuns rallied from a two-run hole Sunday afternoon for a 4-2 win at M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field. Jordan Poirrier’s two-out RBI double broke a 2-2 tie in the seventh inning, and freshman Matt Hicks tossed four scoreless innings out of the bullpen to win his collegiate debut.

"We did a better job of not playing on our heels," UL coach Tony Robichaux said. "We’ve got to get to where we were in the second half of last season when we said ‘It’s up to me’ and not waiting around to see who is going to be the guy."

Both Poirrier and Hicks stepped forward to play major roles in the first win of the season for UL (1-2) before a crowd of 3,352.

Hitless in his first nine at-bats against SEMO (2-1), Poirrier found his groove with the Cajuns down 2-0 Sunday in the third inning. His RBI double started a rally against Brad LaBruyere before the senior second baseman scored one batter later on Mike Petello’s single through the left side to tie it up.

In the seventh Poirrier followed with another two-out RBI double, this time off SEMO reliever Logan Mahon, to give UL its first lead of the season. Like in the third, Poirrier scored again on another Petello single later in the inning.

Poirrier and Petello had two hits and two RBI apiece for UL, and senior shortstop Greg Fontenot recorded three hits. It all added up to the Cajuns outhitting SEMO 13-3 on the day.

Mahon was the losing pitcher after giving up two runs and striking out five in 3.1 innings.

"We might have pressed a little bit (in the first two games), but we were patient today," Poirrier said. "As you saw, we hit the ball pretty good even if we didn’t score a lot of runs."

The Cajuns didn’t need much offense with the way they threw on the mound.

Joey Satriano, the team’s closer last season, made his second NCAA Division I start and held SEMO to three hits and no earned runs in five innings. The senior right-hander allowed two unearned runs in the first on Taylor Heon’s RBI double and Louie Haseltine’s run-scoring groundout following a Fontenot error to start the inning.

UL turned to Hicks in the sixth with the game tied 2-2. After hitting two of his first three batters, the 5-foot-7 righty from Texas recovered and kept the Redhawks off the scoreboard in the sixth. He struck out four and walked only one while allowing no runs in his first collegiate outing.

 

"Coach Robe always talks about not buying into having fear or thinking about losing," Hicks said. "You always have to think that you’re going to win and going to get that guy out."

Midway through his post-game interview, Hicks got a towel of shaving cream rubbed in his face by Fontenot.

But like a pro, Hicks bounced right back. He hopes that the Cajuns can show similar poise when Nicholls State comes to Moore Field on Tuesday night.

"We got down in the first two games (against SEMO) and got down again today, but we showed that we can fight back," Hicks said. "We kept working and proved that we can fight."

Extra bases

The combined attendance for the SEMO series was 10,603. That set the program’s weekend series attendance record, surpassing the previous mark of 9,032 against South Alabama from May 16-18, 2003 "» New UL football coach Mark Hudspeth threw out the first pitch of the game. Dressed in a full baseball uniform, Hudspeth ran onto the field from the bullpen and then fired a strike to the plate "» UL junior catcher Chris Sinclair threw out two base stealers Sunday in his first start of the season "» Sunday was Fontenot’s 43rd multi-hit game of his collegiate career