Baseball: Keefer bails out Cajuns with grand-slam

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • May 16, 2010

Known for his Oklahoma drawl and blue-collar attitude, Chad Keefer leads UL in basically every offensive category this season but still finds a way to usually avoid the spotlight.

He had no such luck on Saturday night.

With the Ragin’ Cajuns trailing 5-4, Keefer hit a sixth-inning grand slam off Western Kentucky left-handed reliever Bart Carter to lift UL to a 12-5 win in the second game of a Sun Belt Conference series.

Keefer’s 12th home run of the season highlighted a five-run inning and helped the Cajuns rebound after coming up on the wrong end of a pitchers’ duel in a 2-1 loss on Friday night.

The hit — perhaps the team’s biggest of the season — also gave the unassuming senior catcher some much-deserved attention in his second-to-last game at M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field.

"He started me off fastball away, and I just tried to stay on the ball because all night I was pulling off the ball," Keefer said. "I put a good swing on it."

The normally stoic Keefer, who has thrived against lefties this year, flashed a grin after being greeted at home plate by his teammates. He finished 3-for-5 with five RBI in the win.

"When you bring match-up people in, you’ve got to get the guy out," UL coach Tony Robichaux said of Carter. "When you don’t, it usually comes back to haunt you."

With the win — and South Alabama’s 8-1 loss to Florida International — the Cajuns (33-17, 17-9 Sun Belt) are now in sole possession of second place in the league standings with four conference games left. First-place Florida Atlantic (31-19, 19-8) is idle this weekend.

Redshirt sophomore right-hander Dayton Marze, a Teurlings Catholic graduate, tossed 3.1 innings of scoreless relief for UL to hold off the Hilltoppers (33-19, 14-12).

WKU ended up stranding 12 runners and scored in only two innings.

"I’m just trying to get in there and give our team a chance to win," said Marze, now 4-3 this season. "My goal is to hold the other team to where they’re at."

WKU reliever Taylor Haydel took loss, falling to 2-4, after giving up three unearned runs in 1.2 innings of work. The Cajuns scored in each of the final six innings and roughed up six Hilltopper pitchers for 13 hits and 12 runs — the most allowed by WKU in conference play this season.

The offensive outburst came after UL managed only one run on two hits in Friday’s loss.

 

"That’s the difference about this team compared to last season," Keefer said. "We have a bunch of guys who love being out here. When we get down we don’t press. We know we’re eventually going to come back."

That mindset came in handy Saturday.

WKU scored first on Matt Borgschulte’s sacrifice fly in the second, but the Cajuns tied it up in the third when Jordan Poirrier ripped a two-out triple and later scored on Chad Keefer’s single up the middle.

The Cajuns grabbed the lead with Justin Robichaux’s RBI double over the head of center fielder Kes Carter in the bottom of the fourth and added another run on Tyler Frederick’s ground out in the fifth.

WKU erased that 3-1 deficit with a four-run sixth, sparked by Kes Carter’s two-run single to shallow center to tie it up.

After Matt Goulas drove in a run with an infield dribbler to third base in the bottom of the sixth, Keefer changed everything two batters later with his grand slam as the Cajuns took an 8-5 lead.

UL added two runs in both the seventh and eighth, respectively, as Lance Marvel (3-for-5 with two RBI and a solo homer) and Justin Robichaux (3-for-5 with three RBI) both finished with big nights.

But no one came up bigger Saturday than Keefer with his sixth-inning grand slam.

"It’s an unbelievable feeling to hear the crowd roar like that," Keefer said, describing what it was like to round the bases after his homer. "There are no words that can describe it. When I saw my guys at home plate, I couldn’t help but smile."

Keefer will be smiling again today if the Cajuns can win their sixth consecutive weekend series. To do that, they need to knock off WKU in the series finale at 1 p.m. today.

Coach Robichaux was unsure of his probable starting pitcher for Game 3, while the Hilltoppers are expected to throw junior righty Brian Edelen (4-1, 3.65 ERA).