It’s not May yet, but there’s almost no way to downplay how significant this weekend’s Sun Belt Conference road series against Coastal Carolina in Conway, South Carolina, is for the UL Ragin’ Cajuns.
The amount of intriguing aspects seems endless.
“It ought to be a great series,” UL coach Matt Deggs said. “They’ve got some older hitters and a team that knows what they want to do. They have a great approach to the game. They’ve got some good arms. They’re very well-rounded, and I’m sure they have big goals and aspirations just like us.”
Wherever you go in analyzing this matchup, the contrasts are both striking and fascinating.
Let’s start with the big picture heading the series that begins at 5 p.m. Friday.
The Cajuns are 30-9 overall and 14-1 in league play, while Coastal is 25-11 and in a five-way tie for second in the league standings at 9-6.
Both are ranked in the D1 Baseball poll — the Cajuns are No. 14 and Coastal is No. 19. But when you look at the current RPI rankings, it’s vastly different with Coastal at 17 and the Cajuns 52.
The next aspect is the style of play, and the differences are many.
The Chanticleers play in a home run hitters' paradise while Russo Park often plays huge.
So far in Sun Belt play, UL leads the league in virtually every main pitching category such as ERA (2.18), opponents batting average (.178), hits allowed (82) and home runs allowed (six).
UL’s pitching plan is expected to be the same this weekend. Andrew Herrmann (4-1, 1.91 ERA) will start the first game and be relieved by LP Langevin (3-0, 2.87).
The starter for the second game will be National Pitcher of the Week in freshman Chase Morgan (4-1, 1.90) with senior Carson Fluno (2-0, 2.20) on Sunday.
Even with all of those pretty pitching numbers, Deggs knows this is a different challenge.
“Dating back to Texas State, you’re going to give it up — just don’t give up multirun shots,” Deggs said. “What we did a great job of at Texas State — ballparks are similar — is if we gave something up, it was solo jobs.”
Coastal’s team ERA in league play is 6.13. Offensively, the Chanticleers are third in runs (125), first in sacrifice flies, third in home runs (22), fourth in on-base percentage and third in batting average (.297).
The Chanticleers are led by such sluggers as Blake Barthol (.343, 14 HRs, 42 RBIs) and Zack Beach (.279, 13 HRs, 40 RBIs). UL has one hitter Kyle DeBarge (.342, 12 HRs, 39 RBIs) with at least 25 RBIs, while the Chanticleers have seven with more than 30.
“You’ve got to be able to handle 7-8-9 and not let them turn it over with guys on base,” Deggs said. “You can control that by dominating the strike zone and dominating routine plays.”
While the Cajuns are eighth in homers and seventh in runs scored, there are recent signs UL is ready for the expected slugfests in Conway.
One is Conor Higgs, who had three doubles in Tuesday’s win over Southeastern and two homers in Wednesday’s win.
“I’ve honestly feel like I’ve been seeing it pretty well all year,” said Higgs, who is now at .325 with seven homers and 20 RBIs after a slow start. “I started getting my lower half through a little bit more and that’s what has really been helping me lately.”
Coastal is expected to start right-hander Riley Eikhoff (4-0, 5.44) in game one and Cameron Flukey (2-1, 4.36) on Saturday. The starter for the third game is undetermined.
Also adding to the intrigue of this series is last year’s showdowns. The Chanticleers won the rubber game in Lafayette 3-2 in 11 innings, then won the Sun Belt tournament opener 6-3 before UL rebounded with wins of 7-3 and 4-1 behind Blake Marshall’s heroic relief appearances.
“I thought we had a great series a year ago,” Deggs said. “The last five or six games have been nip and tuck. You just don’t know.”
There’s also the underlying reality that Coastal achieved the ultimate goal with the 2016 national championship that midmajor programs such as UL aspire to each week.
“They accomplished in ’16 what I thought we were going to do in ’14,” Deggs said.
The Chanticleers are 19-4 at home this season with wins over Wake Forest and North Carolina. The four losses were to Indiana, Old Dominion, James Madison and Duke.
“Huge opportunity for us,” Higgs said of the series. “Pitching, catching, defense — get some runs here and there, put a couple crooked numbers up and we’ll be fine. Our pitching staff is amazing. You’ve seen it day in and day out this whole year.”
