Q: Your team was short-handed for most of the year. OF Matt Goulas (Thoracic Outlet Syndrome), SS William Long (deep thigh bruise), 1B/OF Chance Harst (sports hernia), OF Brian Bowman (torn hip labrum), C/DH Dillon Guillory (hook of the hamate bone in hand), P Blake Wascom (surgery for mole removal) and P Garrett Larsen (ankle) missed significant time. 2B Jordan Poirrier (arm surgery) sat out as a redshirt. 1B/DH Scott Hawkins (concussion, cut lip), OF Kyle Olasin (hook of the hamate), 3B Tyler Benzel (concussion) and P Justin Robichaux (tendinitis) missed some action. OF Les Smith (torn shoulder labrum) was hurt midseason but kept playing. P Greg Wilborn (elbow-ligament replacement surgery) lacked consistency in his first year back from injury. 1B/OF Travis Whipple was suspended for the final three games of this season and all of 2010 for violating team rules. How did those absences affect your team?

A: I think what really started to hurt at first were all the injuries to our hitters, especially Goulas, Long, Olasin and Harst early. We just had a lot of injuries. We finally started getting guys healthy again late, but what really hurt us all year was inconsistency. We were not able to do three things in one night over an extended period of time. You’ve got to pitch, play defense and get timely hitting. Some nights we did one, some nights we did two and every once and a while we did all three. But the teams like Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee did more of all three over an extended period of time. I think that’s why they ended up league co-champions.

Q: Do you think there was anything that could have been done to prevent those injuries?

A: The tough thing was that those really weren’t injuries that you could prevent. The hook of the hamate is a very, very unique injury. I had probably one in 20 years (of coaching) and then all of a sudden we had two this year in Olasin and Guillory. The bottom of the hand gets compressed on the aluminum knob from swinging. I had never had a player with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and didn’t even really know what it was until it happened to Goulas. Will Long collided with another player in an intrasquad game. I had guys in the past with oblique strains, but I had never seen any injury to the severity that we did with Chance. Garrett Larsen’s ankle injury first happened in junior college, but it flared up again. Justin got some tendinitis, and that’s tough to prevent. You try to look at your strength and conditioning program and try to prevent injuries, but in this game you’re going to come across a lot of injuries unique to baseball. We had a lot of them in a compressed amount of time. That’s going to affect your team when you can’t keep your best players on the field.

Q: Which player surprised you the most this season?

A: We got a lot out of Greg Fontenot at shortstop. He helped make the middle of our defense a lot better than the previous year and helped us set a school record for double plays. He had a really good year for us after having freshman-itis as a freshman.

Q: By the final few weeks of the season, UL starters Zach Osborne and Justin Robichaux emerged as two of the league’s top pitchers. How much of an impact did they have down the stretch?

A: With the way they pitched over the last couple of weekends, we really felt like we could win on Friday and Saturday. We felt that we could be 2-0 after the first two days of the league tournament. The thing is you can’t have a guy with an ERA under 2.00 and almost have a losing record. That shows that you’re not hitting or playing good defense.

Q: The Cajuns lose only one position starter in first baseman/designated hitter Scott Hawkins, who leaves as the program’s career home run leader (42). After hitting .344 with 16 home runs as a sophomore in 2007, Hawkins saw his individual numbers dip in his final two years. Why the drop off?

A: Anytime you have a hitter with that kind of power, he’ll be good when he’s protected. In his best year, he was protected with Jonathan Lucroy, Jefferies Tatford and Devery Van DeKeere. Last year and this year, we didn’t have a guy hit consistently behind him. Even a guy like Albert Pujols is not as good when he’s not protected. He probably put too much pressure on himself. A lot of things were put on his shoulders when Lucroy left. You have to spread the stress out in your lineup, otherwise the bridge is going to collapse.