Baseball: Offense falls at Austin regional

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • June 7, 2010

AUSTIN, Texas — During an impressive second-half run this season, UL relied on timely hitting to complement its strong pitching and solid defense.

The Ragin’ Cajuns, though, never got anything going offensively in the NCAA Austin Regional.

Including a 9-1 loss Sunday to 17th-ranked Rice, UL finished the season with a whimper at the plate in Austin. The Cajuns got out-hit, 25-20, and out-scored, 13-4, in their three regional games against third-ranked Texas (once) and Rice (twice).

Texas is the national team ERA leader and second in fielding percentage. Rice ranked 41st in the country in ERA and 42nd in defense.

The offensive issues started at the top for the Cajuns as their leadoff hitter reached base only four times in 27 innings in those three games. That left them unable to bunt and hit and run — which is exactly what UL coach Tony Robichaux wanted to do with this team.

UL’s offensive woes were even worse if you lumped in the 3-0 loss to Middle Tennessee in its final game at the Sun Belt Conference tournament. The Cajuns managed only six hits in that loss with their ace Zach Osborne on the mound.

"That hurt us," Robichaux said. "We scored no runs against Middle Tennessee when Zach pitched in the conference tournament. Here, we got four runs the whole weekend. We ran into some quality arms."

Take a seat

Rice assistant coach Mike Taylor got tossed by home plate umpire Mike Shields as the Owls took the field in the bottom of the third inning Sunday.

Rice coach Wayne Graham came out to home plate to dispute the decision with a cup of water in his hand, eventually tossing it to the ground after a long discussion with the crew. Graham was not available for comment after the game.

Extra bases

The Cajuns fell to 5-16 alltime against Rice with Sunday’s loss and 20-25 in NCAA postseason action "» Rice’s seven-run outburst in the fourth Sunday against the Cajuns was eighth three-run inning allowed by UL since April 6 "» UL starter Taylor Hubbell had thrown 13.2 consecutive scoreless innings before giving up five runs in the fourth against Rice "» UL shortstop Greg Fontenot had five assists against Rice to increase his season total to 184. That’s tied with Kyle Bostick (2009) for the most in a single season by a Cajun "» Fontenot added two hits for his team-best 22nd multi-hit game of the season.