LAFAYETTE - Louisiana Baseball used an incredible pitching effort from Conor Angel, Jacob Schultz and Connor Cooke to blank Virginia Tech, 2-0, on Friday night at M.L. ‘Tigue’ Moore Field at Russo Park.
Angel followed up his tremendous opening day outing with an even better showing on Friday night, throwing 7.1 innings and fanning seven Hokies to earn his first career win (1-1) as a Ragin’ Cajun.
With the victory, Angel became the first pitcher since Grant Cox on May 22, 2019, to surpass the seven inning threshold as a starter.
Schultz replaced Angel in the top of the eighth inning with a man on first base and walked the first two batters he faced to load the bases. After falling behind 3-0 to Brennan Reback, Schultz battle his way back to 3-2 and blew a pitch by him to record the second out of frame. He then forced Carson Taylor to fly out to right field to get out of the jam.
Schultz stayed in to face the first batter in the ninth frame before Cooke came on and forced a ground ball, pop out and punch out to earn the save and seal the 2-0 victory for Louisiana.
The Ragin’ Cajuns (2-4) tallied their two runs in a wacky fifth inning, which started with a Jonathan Windham single. The hit was followed by Colton Frank and Sebastian Toro reaching on errors, allowing Windham to score the game’s first run.
Gavin Bourgeois later stepped into the batter’s box and delivered a huge pinch-hit single to score Toro and give Bourgeois his first RBI since Feb. 20, 2019, and extend the lead to 2-0.
Louisiana hosts Virginia Tech on Saturday with first pitch at 2 p.m. Fans are encouraged to get to the game early with Mardi Gras impacting travel and parking.
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