MOBILE, Ala.  – Meghan Schorman had been Louisiana’s most consistent pitcher at the end of the regular season, and Ragin’ Cajun coach Gerry Glasco didn’t hesitate to put her in the circle for the opening game of the Sun Belt Conference Softball Championships.

“She’s just been throwing really well for us,” Glasco said of the Kentucky transfer, “and she’s got a lot of experience. She’s gotten better and better throughout the season, and I wanted to put her right out there in tournament play.”

Schorman rewarded Glasco and top-seeded Louisiana for that confidence, scattering three hits and striking out nine in leading the Ragin’ Cajuns to a 4-2 win over Coastal Carolina in Wednesday’s opening game and the first game of the double-elimination segment of the tournament.

Schorman (14-4) allowed only one runner past second base through the first five innings, and after being pulled for two batters in the sixth she re-entered in the circle and retired the final six batters she faced, four of them on strikeouts.

The win moved Louisiana (42-11) into the winner’s bracket semifinals at 10 a.m. Thursday against the winner of the Troy-UT Arlington game played later Wednesday. Ninth-seeded Coastal Carolina (22-28) will face the loser of Wednesday’s Texas State-Appalachian State game in an elimination contest at 4 p.m. Thursday.

The Ragin’ Cajuns pushed across single runs in the second and fourth innings off Chanticleer losing pitcher Kaitlin Beasley-Polko (13-10), but it was a fifth-inning two-run homer by shortstop Alexa Langeliers that gave UL some breathing room.

Coastal rallied in the sixth when Makiya Thomas had a leadoff double, her second hit of the game, and relief pitcher Kandra Lamb was greeted by a bunt single from Abbey Montoya and a two-run double from Riley Zana to cut the margin to 4-2. Schorman returned and recorded three outs including two strikeouts to end the threat.

“We were right there,” said Coastal Carolina coach Kelley Green. “That’s kind of been us a lot this year, where we struggle early on and maybe don’t make the adjustments early on, and then come back in later innings and the bats start to heat up just a little bit too late. Our hitters didn’t do a good job early on, but credit to Schorman, she did a great job. The late comeback’s always nice, just wasn’t enough.”

A second-inning double play looked to stifle a Cajun rally, but Raina O’Neal’s two-out double off the centerfield wall plated Sun Belt Player of the Year Melissa Mayeux for the game’s first run. In the fourth, Mayeux singled and scored on Stormy Kotzelnick’s two-out single for a 2-0 lead. Two innings later, Sophie Piskos doubled with one out and Langeliers followed with her 12^th homer of the year and the first in the tournament’s first three games.

“The key to the game was the two-run home run,” Glasco said, “but I thought the turning point was Raina O’Neal coming up with two outs, we’d hit into a double play on a hit-and-run and we were pretty frustrated at that point and the team could have let down. She hit the ball off the wall for a two-out RBI.”

Beasley-Polko scattered nine hits after throwing 123 pitches one day earlier in a complete-game 5-0 win over ULM Tuesday. She struck out two and stranded seven runners.

“She is a hard pitcher to figure out and I thought she came out and set the tone in the first inning and confused our hitters a little bit,” Glasco said of Beasley-Polko. “I thought Schorman did a great job for us. You look at the game, there’s one walk in seven innings for both teams, I thought it was a quality pitched game. Every run turned out to be big in the game. I liked how once we got on the board we kept making threats. We didn’t have an inning where we went down one-two-three, and if you can put pressure on for six innings it’s pretty good for your chances.”