LAFAYETTE — As Sun Belt Conference play reaches its midpoint, both Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns baseball and softball teams are battling to climb the league standings and finish the regular season on a high note.
On the softball diamond, head coach Alyson Habetz’s squad is coming off a tough weekend series loss to James Madison, dropping two of three games — both by just one run. The defeats add to a growing trend, with six of Louisiana’s nine Sun Belt losses coming by a single run.
Despite the heartbreak, Habetz remains optimistic.
“It gives us hope for hopefully finishing out the season strong,” Habetz said. “In the tournament, to know that we can beat everybody. A one-run game is a very small margin of error. That’s the good news — it gives them hope that we can do this. There’s no one we can’t beat.”
The Cajuns currently sit 10th in the conference standings, but with several close contests under their belt, the belief is that a breakthrough could be on the horizon.
Meanwhile, head baseball coach Matt Deggs and his team are looking to rebound after a disappointing series loss to in-state rival ULM, which dropped them to 8-7 in Sun Belt play. The Cajuns are now tied for fifth with Georgia State, but Deggs knows how thin the margin is between mid-pack and the top.
“Coming down the stretch here, these last five weeks, it’s going to be a dogfight,” Deggs said. “I think you’re going to need 15 or 16 wins to get in, and we’ve got to find a way to come up with eight more — and, in my opinion, we’ve got a tougher second-half schedule than the first. We’re going to scrap. We want to get in the tournament. We’ve done it before, and anything can happen.”
Neither team has a midweek game on the schedule. The baseball team will travel to Virginia for a series against Old Dominion, while softball will host South Alabama. Both series begin Thursday. Game one for baseball starts at 5:00 p.m., and softball begins at 4:00 p.m.
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