Baseball: Sensley Lifts Louisiana To Sweep Of Little Rock

LITTLE ROCK, La. – Junior Steven Sensley‘s two-run homer in the ninth inning lifted the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns baseball team to a 5-3 win over Little Rock in the series finale on Sunday at Gary Hogan Field as the Cajuns picked up their eighth straight victory and second sweep in conference play.
 
"The nature of this beast is that you don’t just win in one way. We’ve had to win in many different ways during our win streak," head coach Tony Robichaux said. "You can’t control all the things that happen to you, but you can control how you respond. We did a good job of responding today. We knew we had good arms ready to go in the bullpen. Sometimes you just have to grind through games. Steven did what he’s done for us all year with the big lick and D-Mo (Dylan Moore) was good again for us on the mound."
 
The Ragin’ Cajuns (26-14-1, 13-4-1 Sun Belt) outhit the Trojans (14-26, 6-12 Sun Belt) 11-6 in the contest led by Sensley who went 3-for-5 with a home run, two RBI and scored twice.
 
Reliever Dylan Moore (1-1) picked up his first win of the season retiring all five batters he faced to close out the game with a strikeout.
 
Starter Hogan Harris posted a career-high 10 strikeouts in a no decision. Harris allowed just one run on three hits with four walks in five innings of work. Junior Colten Schmidt was good in relief limiting Little Rock to two unearned runs on three hits in 2.1 innings.
 
Dylan Slayton (3-2) took the loss for the Trojans after giving up two runs on six hits in two innings of relief. Starter Chandler Fidel struck out a career-high nine in 6.2 innings with an unearned run on three hits.
 
Little Rock jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first on a two-out RBI single through the right side of the infield by Riley Pittman.
 
After six scoreless innings, the Cajuns broke into the scoring column in the top of the seventh as Hunter Kasuls came home to score on a throwing error by shortstop Zach Baker with two outs to even the game at 1-all.
 
The Trojans regained the lead in the bottom of the seventh when Hunter Owens scored on a throwing error by shortstop Brad Antchak to take a 2-1 edge. In the next at bat, Cameron Knight singled home a run to increase the lead to 3-1. Centerfielder Ishmael Edwards came up with a big play on the Knight single as he cut down Pittman at the plate to end the inning and keep the Little Rock lead to two runs.
 
Louisiana tied the game for the second time in the top of the eighth on a bases-loaded, two-run single to left center by Alex Pinero to make the score 3-3. The Cajuns had five straight singles to start the inning including a pair of bunt singles by Brenn Conrad and Handsome Monica.
 
Sensley gave the Ragin’ Cajuns their first lead of the day in the top of the ninth hammering an 0-1 pitch from Slayton well over the fence in right field for a two-run homer. The home run is the seventh of the season for Sensley.
 
The Cajuns open another busy week next Tuesday with a 6:30 p.m. contest against Texas at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, Texas. Following the matchup with the Longhorns, Louisiana will return home to Russo Park to face in-state foe McNeese on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
 
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