MOBILE, Ala.  – Louisiana’s offense spotted Troy a 1-0 lead, but the top-seeded Ragin’ Cajuns didn’t stay dormant for very long offensively in Thursday’s opening game of the Sun Belt Conference Softball Championships.

The top-seeded Cajuns tallied 10 hits and eight runs in the second, third and fourth innings and rolled to a five-inning 9-1 win over the Trojans to easily advance to Friday’s winner’s bracket finals.

“They’re just playing as a team so well right now,” said Cajun coach Gerry Glasco, whose squad won its 11^th straight game and won for the 20^th time in its last 21 outings. “We got every single position player in again today, that’s my goal every day because they’re just playing well and I’m trying to keep everybody involved. You look at our offense and I can see, not matter who I look at, I can think of something they’re doing better than anybody else on the ball club.”

Louisiana (43-11) had five extra-base hits in collecting 12 hits in its four offensive innings, and took advantage of multiple illegal-pitch calls against Troy starting pitcher Leanna Johnson (20-12) that gave the Cajuns extra baserunners on walks. Johnson gave up two hits and three walks that led to four runs before leaving in the second inning.

“They (UL) obviously took advantage of our mistakes, they took advantage of the free bases they got on illegal pitches,” said Troy coach Taylor Smartt “I think we had technically four outs if they wouldn’t have been called illegal in that (second inning). We played good defense behind her and gave ourselves a chance, they just kept calling illegal so obviously we had to end up pulling her.”

Louisiana advances to a Friday 10 a.m. game against the winner of the South Alabama-Texas State game, with the winner of that contest advancing to Saturday’s championship game. Troy (30-20) will face the UT Arlington-Georgia State winner in a Friday 4 p.m. elimination game, and will need to win three games to reach the championship game.

Raina O’Neal’s two-run homer in the third inning gave the Cajuns a 6-1 lead, and she added an RBI single that plated Alexa Langeliers in the fourth inning. One inning later, Taylor Roman led off the fifth with an inside-the-park home run for the run-rule game-ender.
O’Neal had also walked and scored in the second when Louisiana pushed across four runs on two hits, two errors, two walks and two wild pitches.

“She did it again today,” Glasco said of O’Neal, who had an RBI double in Wednesday’s opening win over Coastal Carolina after missing most of the season with a hand injury. “That was a big hit to keep the momentum going our way. It’s great to have her back with her veteran leadership. Just to get that lead, it kind of reassured us that we didn’t just make one little run, we made a good run.”

The offensive explosion came in support of UL starter Sam Landry (19-3), who checked Troy on four hits and struck out four. The freshman gave up an RBI single to Kennedi Gaton that scored Blake Gibson in the second inning and allowed two infield hits in the third, but retired the final eight batters she faced.

“I thought she came out in her first tournament game, first postseason game at Louisiana, and pitched how we expected her to pitch,” Glasco said. “She set the tone in that first inning. She’s special and it was good to see her step out in her first performance in the postseason and have a really dominant game. I feel like Troy’s offense is the best offense in the conference besides our team, and to see her shut them down like she did was a good sign.”

Louisiana got an RBI single from Maddie Hayden after two illegal-pitch walks in the second, and two more runs scored on Stormy Kotzelnick’s ground ball that was misplayed. After O’Neal’s homer in the third, she and Kramer Eschete had RBI singles in the fourth inning.