Cajuns Shut Down Troy 5-0 In Opener

Friday, April 24

Troy

6:00 PM

Troy University

UL-Lafayette

4/25/2009 1:45:00 AM | Baseball

TROY, Ala. ? Troy came into Friday's series opener against UL Lafayette riding a nine-game Sun Belt Conference win streak while the Cajuns had dropped six straight league games.

Those streaks both came to a screeching halt as the Ragin' Cajuns road the coattails of junior right-hander Zach Osborne to a 5-0 victory at Riddle-Pace Field. The Houston, Texas, native went the distance for ULL, allowing just four hits while striking out five in posting the shutout.

For the Trojans, it was the fourth time this year the team has been shutout, tying the school season record. Troy falls to 24-15 overall and, more importantly, 11-6 in Sun Belt play. ULL improves to 19-20-1 overall and 9-12 in the league.

“You have to give their guy credit, he pitched a great game,” Trojans coach Bobby Pierce said. “There are a lot of factors that go into pitching a shutout, but he had a great sinker and got a lot of ground ball outs.”

Osborne (3-2) retired the Trojans in order five times in the game and allowed just two runners as far as second base. He retired 16 Troy hitters on ground balls and had just four fly ball outs. He needed 131 pitches to go the distance in a game that took just 2:15 to play.

“You can't win every game, but you hate to get shut out,” Pierce said. “That is how it goes sometimes. We just need to bounce back tomorrow and start swinging the bats again.”

The effort by Osborne made a hard-luck loser of Troy freshman hurler Tyler Ray (5-3). The Hoover product matched Osborne early on, and allowed just two earned runs on eight hits over 7 1/3 innings of work. He struck out seven in the game, and neither pitcher walked a batter.

ULL broke on top in the fourth inning on a single by Chad Keefer, plating Travis Whipple, who had singled to right to open the frame.

The Cajuns pushed their lead to 2-0 in the fifth inning when Kyle Bostick led off with a ground-rule double, advanced on a ground ball and scored on a sacrifice fly by Kyle Olasin.

ULL broke the game open in the eighth, scoring three unearned runs to chase Ray from the game and push its lead to 5-0. The key play in the game came after Olasin led off the inning with a single through the right side. Matt Goulas followed with a sacrifice bunt toward second base that was fielded by Trevor Tyre, who threw wild of first.

After the error, Ray bounced back to strikeout Whipple, but was lifted in favor of Jeff Green. After hitting Scott Hawkins with a 3-1 pitch, Green got an infield fly and appeared set to get out of danger with two quick strikes against Keefer, but the junior delivered a single to left, plating a pair of runs.

Greg Fontenot followed with an RBI double to give ULL a 5-0 lead.

The Trojans had single hits in the game from Miles Hoyle, Charley Williams, Adam Bryant and Tyre. Senior Brett Henry had an eight-game hit streak snapped and also saw his streak of games reaching base end at 41.

Olasin had four hits in the game for Cajuns while Whipple and Keefer had two hits each.

Troy, which has never won a series from ULL, will try to even the series on Saturday when junior right-hander Jason Walls (3-2, 3.38) takes the mound. He will face junior right-hander Justin Robichaux (0-1, 3.60), who will be making just his second start of the year for his father's team.

“Hopefully Jason will come out and pitch well for us again tomorrow and we can find a way to out in front of them early,” Pierce said. “We seem to be at our best when we can score early and then extend the lead because everything tends to feed off that fast start.”

The first pitch on Saturday night is scheduled for 6 p.m.