Cajuns’ Pitching Dominates Lions, 4-1

The story heading into the weekend series between the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns and the Southeastern Louisiana Lions was the Lions' pitching staff, ranked second in the nation in ERA.

But in game one of the series Friday night, it was the Cajuns' pitching that stole the show.

Gunner Leger, Eric Carter and Dylan Moore combined on a one hitter as the Cajuns defeated Southeastern 4-1 before 4,460 at M. L. "Tigue" Moore Field.

Leger (4-2) faced just three hitters over the minimum in his seven innings of work, with two walks and two strikeouts in his 94 pitch performance.  Carter struck out two in his inning of work before yielding to Moore, who recorded his eighth save by retiring the Lions in order in the ninth.

The Cajuns meanwhile, scored single runs in the second, third, fourth and sixth innings against Lions' starter Kyle Cedotal (3-3), who entered the game with a sparkling 1.17 ERA.  Cedotal gave up a season high eight hits in his 6.1 innings of work and gave up three earned runs, tying the most in an appearance this season.  The left hander walked one and struck out only one  He had been averaging more than nine strikeouts per nine innings coming into the game.

"I was really proud of our hitters tonight,"  Louisiana head coach Tony Robichaux said.  "We had an approach each time we came up and got some big hits and hit other balls hard that they turned into outs. It was a good job against a really good arm."

Louisiana (23-11) got on the board in the second inning when Brad Antchak led off with a base hit and Dylan Poncho walked.  Brenn Conrad sacrificed the runners to second and third, but Antchak was out at the plate when Nick Thurman's squeeze bunt went just a few feet from home plate.  Derek Herrington then grounded to shortstop but Brennan Braud threw low to first base, allowing Poncho to score.

The Lions (25-10) tied the game in the third when Chris Eades led off with Southeastern's only hit of the game, a double off the left-center field wall.  He went to third on Ryan Byers' fly ball to center and scored on Taylor Schwaner's sacrifice fly.

The Cajuns got the run right back in the bottom of the inning when Brian Mills doubled and went to third on a ground ball.  He scored on Cedotal's wild pitch to make the score 2-1.

The Cajuns then got a solo homer from Conrad in the fourth inning, his third of the season and closed the scoring on Joe Robbins .ninth homer, an opposite field shot to right.

Leger got into a bit of trouble in the fourth inning when he hit Braud with a pitch but promptly picked him off.  Jameson Fisher, the nation's leading hitter coming into the game, was walked and went to third when Carson Crites' grounder to short got by Antchak for an error.  But Crites was thrown out trying to get to second on the throw to third and Webb Bobo grounded out to end the inning. Leger retired the last ten men he faced before leaving after the seventh.

Mills and Trosclair led the Cajuns' nine hit attack with two hits each.

The Cajuns have now won eleven of their last thirteen games and head to Hammond tomorrow for the second game of the series.  First pitch is scheduled for 6:05 at Pat Kenelly Diamond/Alumni Field.