Baseball: Louisiana Snaps Losing Skid, Beats Nicholls State, 9-8

Box Score THIBADOUX, La. – Louisiana Baseball snapped its four-game losing streak by beating Nicholls State, 9-8, at Ben Meyer Diamond at Ray E. Didier Field on Tuesday night.

After Nicholls tagged Louisiana for four runs and brought the game to 9-8 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Austin Bradford shut the door for Louisiana, tossing 1.2 innings and recording the save.

Louisiana also got its groove back at the plate, recording its second-most hits on the year with 14.

Connor Kimple and Ben Fitzgerald flashed the yard card, hitting back-to-back home runs, the first Cajun duo to do so since Orynn Veillon and Handsome Monica did so against Louisiana State on April 16, 2019.

Louisiana was the first to score in Tuesday’s contest, plating two runs on an RBI-single from Bobby Lada and a wild pitch to make the game 2-0 in the second inning.

The Ragin’ Cajuns tacked on three more runs in the third inning on a Ben Fitzgerald double and a Brett Borgogno two-out, two-run single to right field to extend the lead to 5-0.

Borgogno joined Kimple and Fitzgerald as the three Cajuns to record three hits on the night.

Nicholls State grabbed a pair of runs off Dane Dixon in the fifth inning, one unearned run and one on a sac-fly, to cut the lead to 5-2. On the sac fly, Alex Hannie made a tremendous play, crashing into the wall to save an extra-base hit and a pair of runs.

Kimple and Fitzgerald hit back-to-back moon shots in the fourth inning, giving Louisiana a 7-2 lead and giving each their fourth homer of the season.

Although Connor Cooke walked three Colonels, he fanned six batters in two innings pitched.

Louisiana and Nicholls State added runs in the fifth inning on a Tyler Robertson sac-fly and a balk charged to David Christie, who was eventually earned the win in the contest, that brought the score to 8-3 in favor of Louisiana.

Kimple later doubled off the left field wall in the top of the seventh inning, extending the Louisiana lead to 9-4.

Nicholls State kept battling the whole game, scoring four runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, but could not get past Bradford as he earned his first save of the season.