Baseball: Friday night magic – Robichaux delivers in 2-0 win over Alabama

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, Mar. 1, 2014

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Ryan Leonards had UL’s only two hits, a couple of line drives up the middle. But the Ragin’ Cajuns didn’t need them.

Alabama had seven hits to the Cajuns’ two. But they didn’t do the Crimson Tide any good.

Not with junior righty Austin Robichaux throwing a complete-game shutout for UL in the first outing of a three-game weekend series.

Not with Chase Compton putting down a suicide squeeze – a double-squeeze, actually – that produced the only runs the Cajuns would need.

Compton’s bunt in the bottom of the seventh scored Ryan Wilson from third base and Jace Conrad from second as No. 10 UL beat No. 21 Alabama 2-0 Friday night in front of 4,040 at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field.

That resulted in the ninth straight win for the Sun Belt Conference’s 9-1 Cajuns, who have now beat nationally ranked SEC teams – Alabama and No. 1 LSU last Tuesday night – in back-to-back games.

“It shows we can win,” Compton said, “if we just compete and grind the whole game.”

“Huge,” Robichaux added with reference to taking the series opener. “You can’t sweep if you don’t win the first game, so it was good to take care of that first one.”

For Robichaux, though, what mattered most was simply escaping Friday’s first inning against an Alabama team paying its first-ever visit to The Tigue.

The Crimson Tide had the bases loaded with only one out before Robichaux struck out Casey Hughston and got No. 6 hitter Kyle Overstreet to ground out into a fielder’s choice.

“The turning point for me was … when Austin got out of that jam and then settled in and took it from there,” Tony Robichaux said, “and then we played great defense behind him.

“We got (Compton’s two-RBI bunt) when we needed it,” he added. “But the big key to this thing was being able to pitch and play defense and try to match (Alabama starter Spencer Turnbull).”

Turnball struck out six in 6.2 innings, and Crimson Tide relievers Thomas Burrows and Jay Shaw didn’t allow any hits in their combined 1.1 innings.

“He (Turnbull) was throwing pretty hard,” Compton said. “He had some good movement on his balls. He was a good pitcher. Give him credit. But I’m just glad we got the win.”

The Cajuns did because of what happened in the bottom of the seventh.

With the game still scoreless, Turnbull (0-1) walked Wilson.

Conrad then put down a sacrifice bunt that Turnbull couldn’t handle cleanly, and both runners advanced a base – Conrad to second, Wilson to third – as Turnbull panicked and threw unnecessarily to an uncovered first.

Up came Compton, who got his bat on a 1-0 fastball down the middle for a perfect bunt fielded by Turnbull.

The Alabama junior threw to first to get Compton, but Wilson was coming from third and Conrad was coming from second all the way.

“It was the right play at the right time,” Conrad said.

“That’s something we practice all the time,” Compton added. “I just have to go out there and execute my job.”

Austin Robichaux did his too, getting out of a one-out, two-on threat in the sixth the same way he got out of the first – by striking out Hughston, then getting Overstreet to ground out.

The Cajun ace wound up retiring 11 of the last 12 batters he faced. He finished with 11 strikeouts – three shy of his career high – and just one walk.

“I had to find my release point (in the first inning),” Robichaux said, “and once I found it I got going.

“I knew (Turnbull) was pretty good, and runs were going to be limited. … (But) I knew our hitters would be coming around. They always do.”

Robichaux, who has now thrown 10.2 consecutive scoreless innings, wound up throwing 128 pitches.

He originally wasn’t going to throw the ninth, but did after retiring the side in order in the eighth with a groundout and two strikeouts.

It was his second complete-game shutout, along with one that went seven innings against Middle Tennessee in 2012.

“At first we (he and father Tony) both agreed that if I get out of the eighth we were gonna bring in (true-freshman closer Reagan) Bazar,” Austin Robichaux said. “But after that quick eighth, I wanted to finish it.”

Tony Robichaux was prepared to pull his son if he put a baserunner on in the ninth.

But it didn’t come to that as Austin Robichaux got pinch-hitter Hunter Webb to ground out to Conrad at second, Overstreet to ground out to shortstop Blake Trahan and Austen Smith to fly out to centerfielder Seth Harrison.

“I went down and asked him how he felt,” Tony Robichaux said. “He said he felt good. I said, ‘Do you want to finish this? It’s yours if you want to finish it.’ He said, ‘I want to finish it.’

“(High) pitch counts – I don’t think they’re always bad I think they’re bad when you’re not working in the middle of the week. But we put in a ton of work in-between our pitch starts.

“Are you gonna do this every weekend? Probably not,” Robichaux added. “But he wanted to finish em, so I allowed him to do that.”

LAGNIAPPE: UL’s shutout was its first since a 12-0 non-conference win over Northwestern State last April 10. … With a win today or Sunday, the Cajuns would win their fourth straight weekend series dating back to the end of last season. … Alabama right-fielder Ben Moore was 3-for-4, but all of the Crimson Tide’s seven hits were singles.