The UL baseball team's long 2022 journey reaches another weekend of truth starting at 7 p.m. Friday in the opening game of the NCAA College Station regional against the TCU Horned Frogs.
“I‘m expecting a tight game,” UL coach Matt Deggs said. “They’re obviously super well-coached. Their kids are going to be ready. It ought to be a good battle.”
The No. 3-seeded Ragin' Cajuns (36-21) are the Sun Belt tournament champions, while No. 2-seeded TCU (36-20) is the Big 12 regular-season champion.
“We’re pretty similar on paper, even if you look at a lot of the RPI metrics,” Deggs said.
Offensively, UL is batting .288 with 353 runs, 100 doubles, 27 triples, 54 homers and 134 stolen bases. TCU is hitting .272 with 404 runs, 111 doubles, 12 triples, 55 homers and 91 stolen bases.
On the mound, the Cajuns have a 4.14 team ERA while allowing 474 hits, 218 walks and striking out 517 in 506⅓ innings. Opponents are hitting .250 against them. TCU’s staff has a 4.62 ERA while allowing 473 hits, 241 walks and striking out 490 in 489⅓ innings. Opponents are batting .254 against the Horned Frogs.
The Cajuns have a .973 fielding percentage, while the Horned Frogs are at .978.
“Just play our game,” Deggs said of his team's approach. “They’re going to be able to pitch it, field it and they’re going to be able to produce and score runs. We’re just going to have to stick to our formula — pitch it, be efficient, make routine plays and continue to keep the pressure on offensively.
“We’ve got to start driving in runs, I tell you that. If you want a key, there you go. We’ve got to drive in runs.”
At this point, it’s no longer about preparation. That hay is in the barn.
Handling the obstacles of bad weather early, a rugged schedule throughout and the pressure of having to win the Sun Belt tournament to earn a regional berth began back in the fall.
“I was amazed at how Matt (Deggs) would challenge them in the early-morning workouts,” first-year UL pitching coach Seth Thibodeaux said. “I was amazed at how they responded to it and how they accepted the adversity and the things he was trying to get them to do.
“As an assistant coach, I would walk around to see who was the guy who would complain — see if we had any guys like that — and no would complain about any of the tough stuff we were doing. I knew right away.”
As a result of that fall labor, Deggs declared his team a “regional” squad as long as injuries and the breaks of the game allowed it to fulfill its potential.
“Look, what our boys did last weekend (at the Sun Belt tourney) is no small feat,” Deggs said. “That could have been a regional in and of itself. It was pretty impressive what they did. Hopefully, we still have some steam to us and keep this thing rolling.”
One could argue that having to beat Palo Alto regional No. 2 seed Texas State and Statesboro regional No. 1 seed Georgia Southern last weekend was more pressure than what UL will face on Texas A&M's campus this weekend.
“You could say that,” UL senior infielder Jonathan Brandon said. “Everyone in the country is going to look at us as the underdog, so I feel like we’re going to have the country have our back, especially Friday. I feel like we’re going to have a lot of the (Texas) A&M fans on our back, too.
“So yeah, it is less pressure. We’re playing to win, but we’re playing to have fun, too.”
Tommy Sacco leads TCU’s lineup at .350 with 12 homers and 51 RBIs, while Carson Roccaforte paces UL at .379 with 16 homers and 68 RBIs.
“We need to execute bunts, put the ball in play, play good defense … just play the game that we can play and I think we’ll be fine,” Brandon said.
TCU’s ace pitcher has been 6-foot-3 sophomore right-hander Riley Cornelio (4-4, 4.41 ERA, 69⅓ IP, 74 K).
He didn’t pitch against the Cajuns when TCU defeated UL in two of three games in Lafayette last season, but other potential starters did in Austin Krob and Marcelo Perez. Krob limited UL to one run on two hits, three walks and nine strikeouts in six innings as a starter, while Perez gave up three runs on three hits, two walks and three strikeouts in 1⅔ innings of relief.
“They’ve run several guys in and out of there,” Deggs said about TCU’s pitching. “Knowing (TCU coach) Kirk (Saarloos), he’s probably got a lot of trust in several of them. He’s probably going to look for a matchup and may throw several different guys.”
Saarloos actually won’t be in the dugout after garnering a two-game suspension after an ejection during a Big 12 tournament loss to Texas.
