Baseball: Cantrelle’™s Historic Day Helps Power Louisiana to 16-10 Comeback at Little Rock
Louisiana scored 11 runs in the final four innings to help even the series
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Eleven runs from the sixth inning on highlighted a furious comeback effort by the Louisiana baseball team, which overcame a 9-4 deficit to claim a 16-10 victory and even the series at Gary Hogan Field on Saturday afternoon.
Louisiana (8-11, 1-1) produced a season-high 20 hits in the contest, its first 20-hit performance since it recorded 21 against Nicholls State on April 4, 2017. Eight Louisiana batters recorded at least one of those hits in the game and six produced multi-hit games.
Sophomore Hayden Cantrelle put his power on display against the Trojans as three of his four hits were home runs. Cantrelle joined elite company on Saturday, becoming just the 10th player in program history to record three homers in one game and the first since Michael Strentz went yard three times against ULM on March 16, 2014.
Cantrelle finished the game with 14 total bases, one shy of Kolin Hatfield’s record of 15, and five RBI.
Brennan Breaux also finished the game with four hits, including a double and two RBI, while Hunter Kasuls, Handsome Monica and Orynn Veillon each homered to bring the game total to six, one shy of the school record for the most homers in a single game.
Senior Grant Cox (1-0) earned his first win of the season, throwing 3.0 scoreless innings and allowing one hit. He was relieved by Brandon Young, who closed out the game with 3.0 innings of work and five strikeouts to earn his second save of the season.
Despite scoring at least once in three of the first four innings, Little Rock (6-13, 1-1) responded with runs of its own and eventually took a 9-4 advantage into the fifth.
Louisiana slowly made its way back into the game and tied things up at 9-9 in the sixth when Kasuls flied out to score Cantrelle from third to cap off a four-spot. The tide turned an inning later when Monica blasted a lead-off homer to left to give Louisiana a 10-9 advantage.
The Ragin’ Cajuns went on to score one more in the seventh before adding five runs in the final two innings to even the series with a 16-10 win.
The series finale will be played on Sunday with first pitch from Gary Hogan Field slated for 1 p.m.
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