POSTGAME REACTION
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – When they faced a 5-0 deficit after three innings and Georgia Southern had already hit three home runs, Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajun baseball team still had confidence.
“I never had any doubt that my team was going to come back,” said Louisiana relief pitcher Bo Bonds. “I never had any doubt what we were going to do. My team was going to come through, no matter how many runs they were up, I knew we were going to come through.”
Bonds slowed Georgia Southern’s offense down over the next five innings, and the Ragin' Cajuns rallied back to take a 7-6 victory over the Eagles in Sunday’s championship game of the Guardian Credit Union Sun Belt Baseball Championship presented by Troy University.
“They’ve got a lot of grit and a lot of heart and a lot of fight, and you saw that all year,” said coach Matt Deggs, whose team won its first Sun Belt title since winning three in a row from 2014-16. “They’re uncommon in everything they do, and they play like savages, man, they just don’t give in. They never care who gets credit, and it’s just about team, and you saw the power of team today.”
The fourth-seeded Cajuns (36-21) spotted the second-seeded Eagles that early 5-0 lead before getting their own offense on track, and got eight of their 10 hits in the final six innings. The biggest of those came in the top of the ninth after Georgia Southern (40-18) had taken a 6-5 lead in the eighth on Jarrett Brown’s sacrifice fly that plated Christian Avant.
With one out, Heath Hood was hit by reliever Thomas Higgins (2-3) and Julian Brock followed with a single that sent Hood to third. The Ragin' Cajuns then pulled off a double-steal with Hood scoring to tie the game and Brock winding up at second. That brought outfielder Will Veillon to the plate on his 22nd birthday—but only after he refused to be replaced by a pinch hitter.
“I had a feeling that Coach Deggs might do matchups,” said Veillon, whose double in the right-centerfield gap scored Brock with the eventual winning run. “I heard him tell C. J. (Willis) to get out of the bullpen and come down and get warm, so I had it in the back of my mind that he may pinch-hit. He said Will, I’m pinch-hitting for you, C. J.’s going to pinch-hit for you and I said no, you’re not. He kind of looked at me and said, all right, get it done, and I said I will.”
“I wasn’t real happy with his last at-bat,” Deggs said of Veillon, “and I went down and I told Will I’m about to pinch-hit for you here, bud, and he just said no. He said I’m going to get it done right here, and I said, well, prove it. And he did.”
That hit provided the game’s final score, but not the final excitement. After Cajun reliever Jake Hammond (3-1) struck out the first two batters he faced in the bottom of the ninth, Eagle leadoff hitter Jesse Sherrill poked a single up the middle and Jason Swan and Christian Avant drew walks to bring Noah Ledford to the plate. Ledford already had a solo home run and an RBI double in the first three innings.
“I still felt like we were going to get it done in the bottom half,” said Georgia Southern coach Rodney Hennon. “This team has come back time and time again this year. Jesse singles, we get great at-bats from Swan and Avant and you’ve got the guy up that you want up there in Noah Ledford. He was seeing it pretty good today, just missed it. That’s baseball.”
Ledford sent a fly ball to center field that Ragin' Cajuns outfielder Max Marusak gathered in to give Louisiana its fifth all-time league title. Georgia Southern had the disappointment of its fourth loss in the title game including the last two seasons.
The Eagles jumped in front off Cajun starter Jeff Wilson when Ledford led off the second inning with a home run to right field, and two outs later Sam Blancato matched that shot over the right-field wall for a 2-0 lead. One inning later, Eagle catcher JP Tighe led off the third with another solo blast, this one to left field, and Ledford’s double plated Sherrill with another run as part of a five-hit third inning.
“I felt like they had a good game plan off Jeff,” Deggs said. “They were looking for the elevated soft stuff and they taxed it. I didn’t want us to fall too far behind, I felt like we were pressing, and I felt like we were getting outcompeted. I felt like they wanted it more than us, I said we’ve got to get to matching that right now, and Bo turned it on.”
Bonds gave up the double to Ledford and an RBI single to Austin Thompson that made it 5-0, but after that he retired 12 of the next 13 batters and never allowed a runner past second base until the eighth inning as part of a six-strikeout performance.
“I gave up those two runs, and I had it figured I gotta turn it around,” Bonds said. “Our pitching staff all year has been about picking the next guy up, so I just went in there and picked Jeff up.”
“We came out swinging the bats really well, jumped out,” Hennon said. “Bonds came in and threw the ball really well for them and kind of held us in check. They scratched back in.”
Louisiana got three runs back in the fourth when Veillon drew a walk and eventually scored on Marusak’s ground-ball single. One out later, Carson Roccaforte plated Jonathan Brandon and Marusak with a two-run single to cut the margin to 5-3.
Brandon led off the sixth with a triple to right-center, and with two outs freshman, Kyle DeBarge blooped a double down the right-field line. One inning later, Tyler Robertson—whose two homers provided all of Louisiana's runs in its Saturday 3-2 win over top-seeded Texas State—was hit by a pitch and eventually scored on Julian Brock’s sacrifice fly to tie the game.
Avant singled off Bonds to lead off the eighth and moved up on Thompson’s double before Brown’s sacrifice fly gave the Eagles the lead before Louisiana’s ninth-inning rally that sent them to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since their 2016 conference title game victory.
“Our whole thing all year has been make them call our name,” Deggs said of the NCAA Selection Show. “We’re going to make them call our name. We had our opportunities during the regular season to make them call our name, but now they have to. We were on the precipice, and I told them don’t go back, don’t shrink back now, if you want to be champions you’re going to have to go take it. And they did. They changed the trajectory of this program with that win today.”
Most Outstanding Player
Jacob Schultz, Louisiana (Sr., RHP – Oklahoma City, Okla.)
All-Tournament Team
Michael Knorr, Coastal Carolina (Sr., RHP – Carlsbad, Calif.)
Christian Avant, Georgia Southern (5th, OF – Tifton, Ga.)
Sam Blancato, Georgia Southern (RS So., OF – Marietta, Ga.)
Ben Johnson, Georgia Southern (So., RHP – Tucker, Ga.)
Jesse Sherrill, Georgia Southern (Jr., 2B – Pensacola, Fla.)
Bo Bonds, Louisiana (So., RHP – Live Oak, Fla.)
Kyle DeBarge, Louisiana (Fr., SS – Kinder, La.)
Tyler Robertson, Louisiana (Jr., 3B – Montgomery, Ala.)
Michelle Artzberger, ULM (So., 1B – Lawton, Okla.)
Austin Smith, Texas State (RS Jr., LHP – Abilene, Texas)
Tristan Stivors, Texas State (Sr., RHP – Castroville, Texas)
Jesse Hall, Troy (Sr., SS – Tallahassee, Fla.)
Rigsby Mosley, Troy (Sr., LHP – Maitland, Fla.)
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