Louisiana Baseball bested Rice, 6-3, on Sunday afternoon at M.L. 'Tigue' Moore Field at Russo Park, giving the team its first non-conference sweep since it took three from Saint Peter's in 2017.
Carson Roccaforte added two more base hits on the day, keeping his average at .500 on the year (13-for-26). Similar to his first outing against Rice in 2020, Carter Robinson cruised past Owls hitters. Robinson has now twirled 11.1 innings against the Owls, while only surrendering one earned run and fanning 11 batters.Rice jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the contest.
The Owls capitalized on a throwing error that wasn't charged to toady's starter, Robinson (1-0). Robinson was sharp on the afternoon, tossing 5.1 innings, giving up zero earned runs and punching out four batters.
Louisiana had trouble hitting Roel Garcia for the first four innings of the contest, striking out eight times to the Owls starting pitcher. When Rice went to its bullpen, Tyler Robertson gave Louisiana the lead in the fifth inning, smashing his second home run of the weekend, a two-run bomb off Brandon Deskins (0-1).
Louisiana posted three-consecutive two-run innings from the fifth frame to the seventh frame. In the sixth inning, Josh Cofield tagged Rice with a pinch-hit RBI-single through the right side of the infield scoring Drake Osborn. Robertson came up later in the inning and ripped a single to left field giving Louisiana a 4-1 advantage. Louisiana wasn't done in the seventh inning and used a Bobby Lada double, his second of the weekend, and Drake Osborn sacrifice fly to make the game 6-1.
Rice hit a two-run home run in the top of the eighth off Will Moriarty, who was making his first appearance of the season.
The Owls' comeback effort wasn't enough as the Ragin' Cajuns used perfect innings from Jeff Wilson and Jacob Schultz (S, 1) to close out the game with a final score of 6-3. Louisiana is back in action on Tuesday as it hosts Louisiana Tech for a 6:00 p.m. matchup.