Opening day at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field at Russo Park is a special one, where thousands of fans gather to watch the “Waterhose Boys” kick off the Louisiana baseball season.
This year, the opening series of the season was against the San Jose State Spartans. The first game of the series began on Friday, Feb. 14 at 6 p.m., with the honor of the first start on the mound going to Chase Morgan.
Morgan, a sophomore lefty, was named the preseason Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year. This comes after a freshman campaign that saw him named All–Sun Belt First Team and Sun Belt Freshman of the Year. He showed off why he deserved the honor in Louisiana’s 7–2 victory over the Spartans.
In 5.0 innings, the Ace from Cypress, Texas racked up seven strikeouts with only one walk. He allowed only four hits and one earned run. He could throw without worry as the fielders behind him played a perfect game, no errors being recorded and Morgan giving the defense easy ground outs.
Morgan was taken out of the game following the fifth inning after throwing 67 pitches against 20 batters. A solid performance for the first game of the season. He was replaced on the mound by redshirt sophomore James Trimble.
The six foot right-hander from Galveston, Texas pitched the remaining four innings, finishing the game out for Louisiana. He only allowed one run to the Spartans, a single home run shot to right field.
Trimble faced 15 batters, striking out five of them and only allowing four hits, finishing the game in the ninth with 57 pitches thrown.
While the pitching on the mound and defense for the Cajuns were amazing in the first game, there is still the matter of the seven runs scored.
While seven runs might show a good offense clicking right from the start, it was mainly the Cajuns benefiting from the many mistakes from the Spartans on the mound and in the field. Those seven runs came off of only four hits, as most of the team’s focus came on small ball, meaning there were a lot of bunts and base stealing as opposed to solid hitting.
The scoring started in the fourth. Luke Yuhasz would get on base with a walk and would advance to second after Connor Cuff was hit by a pitch. It was here things began to slip for the Spartans.
Second baseman Sam Ardoin would bunt the ball to the third baseman who would easily gather the grounder, but the usually routine sac bunt would turn disastrous as he missed the throw. This fatal error would allow Ardoin to reach third while Yuhasz and Cuff would score the first runs of the game for Louisiana.
This was followed up by another error made by the San Jose shortstop who would overthrow the first baseman, allowing Drew Markle to reach second and letting Ardoin score, giving Markle an RBI.
Markle would steal third, setting up the final run of the inning. Lee Amedee would get Markle home with a sac bunt of his own, netting him an RBI.
Two more runs would be scored in the fifth. The first started with a single from Ardoin, advancing to second after a wild pitch. He would get home after Maddox Mandino hit a single through the middle of the infield, advancing to second on the throw to home.
Mandino would score thanks to two wild pitches from the San Jose pitcher, helping increase the Louisiana lead 6–1.
The last run in the eighth came purely off of walks, Louisiana benefiting from four walks in one inning allowing Mandino to walk home for Louisiana’s seventh and final run of the game.
Louisiana won this game thanks to solid pitching and defense, along with benefiting from the eight walks gifted to them by the six pitchers that stood on the mound for San Jose.
The next game of the series, beginning at 1pm on Saturday, Feb. 16, did not go so well for the Cajuns. San Jose would roll the Cajuns 8–3, dominating the poor pitchers put on the mound.
The start on the mound would go to the right handed junior Blake Mcgehee. Mcgehee started five games in 2024, posting a record of 3–2 with a 5.12 ERA. It certainly is not anything to write home about, and not close to Morgan, and it showed in Saturday’s game.
Mcgehee started the game off well, only allowing one man on base in the first two innings with a walk, striking out a batter in the second. Everything went out the window in the third.
In the span of one inning, Mcgehee would give up five hits and four runs which would pretty much seal the game for the Cajuns by the end of the third.
Mcgehee would be credited with the loss despite being taken off before the fourth, replaced by senior Dylan Theut. He spent all of last season nursing an injury, making this the first time he had pitched in a game since the 2023 season.
Theut spent his 3.1 innings fairing a little better than Mcgehee, not allowing any earned runs, as both runs scored in the fourth were off of errors by the fielders.
Theut would not allow any additional runs following the fourth before being pulled from the mound after throwing 57 pitches in his three innings on the mound.
Theut would be replaced by the massive 6’5” lefty Matt Gaither. The height did little for the two runs he allowed in his single inning of pitching. He was quickly pulled in the seventh for true freshman Wilton Taylor.
Taylor, a Lafayette native, did well his first time on the collegiate mound. He would finish out the game for Louisiana without allowing a single additional run.
Even though the pitchers were not on the top of their game, the batters are also to share some blame. The Cajuns recorded nine hits, five more than the night before, the main difference was that they were not benefiting from San Jose mistakes.
The Cajuns continued their bad play into Sunday where they were crushed 12–4 due to more poor pitching from the mound and four errors made in the field. The bats once again did not pull through, with the only consistent hitter being Brooks Wright who recorded three hits in four at bats.
Louisiana will be heading into next weekend’s game against (24) Nebraska in the worst form possible. It being early in the season should not be an excuse for the poor play from the team.