Cajuns Crush UT Arlington 19-6

The Louisiana bats came to play in Sunday’s series finale at UT Arlington. The Cajuns erupted for a season high 19 runs en route to a seven inning mercy rule win.

The 19-6 victory also gives the Cajuns a crucial Sun Belt Conference series win.

Louisiana got after UT Arlington pitching early and often. The Cajuns started the scoring in the third inning when they used six hits to plate six runs. Joe Robbins led off with a walk and then moved to second base when Nick Thurman sacrificed him over. Derek Herrington then doubled to center allowing Robbins to come. Hunter Kasuls followed up Herrington’s double with a single putting runner at first and third for Brian Mills.

Mills then took the first pitch he saw from UTA starter Jake Wilcox and launched a no doubt home run over the left field wall, giving Louisiana a 4-0 lead. Kyle Clement followed the Mills home run by singling to center.

With one on and just one-out Stefan Trosclair extended the Louisiana lead to 6-0 when he homered to straight away center field. In the inning the Cajuns would send nine men to the plate.

UT Arlington picked up a run of their own in the bottom half of the third making it 6-1 Cajuns after three.

The Cajun offense picked up in the fourth where it had left off in the third. The Cajuns scored four times to take a 10-1 lead. Louisiana used three hits and took advantage of two Maverick errors in the inning.

The nine run cushion would figure to be plenty for Cajun freshman phenom Nick Lee but that was not the case. In an uncharacteristic outing, Lee could not make it out of the fifth. After allowing UTA to load the bases with nobody outs, Lee was replaced by fellow freshman Hogan Harris. The Mavericks would score four times on four hits and a Cajun error. After five innings of play Louisiana held a 10-5 lead.

Despite giving up fours runs in the fifth, the Cajuns did not panic and instead responded with six runs of their own. In the sixth Louisiana used doubles from Trosclair ,Alex Pinero, Joe Robbins and Derek Herrington along with singles from Nick Thurman and Brian Mills to push their lead to 16-5.

Louisiana added three more runs in the seventh. But more note worthy than the three runs was Stefan Trosclair’s lead off triple. The triple successfully completed the cycle to Trosclair.

In addition to Trosclair’s cycle, Louisiana was also led offensively by Brian Mills. Mills finished the day 4-5, with 5 RBI and a big fly. As a team Louisiana cranked out a season high 21 hits Sunday afternoon.

Harris picked up the first win of his Cajun career. Jevin Huval worked the final two innings of the ball game for Louisiana.

The Cajuns will next be action Friday night when they welcome Appalachian State to the Tigue. With the university taking finals this week there are no midweek contests.