MOBILE, Ala.  – For the second straight game, Louisiana turned to Raina O’Neal when the Ragin’ Cajuns needed a big hit.
This time, it was the only run of the game, with O’Neal’s second homer of the Sun Belt Conference Softball Championships breaking a scoreless tie in the eighth inning and boosting the top-seeded Cajuns to a 1-0 win over Texas State in the winner’s bracket finals.

“Before the inning, I saw her on deck, I said to her it’s a great time to be a veteran,” said Louisiana coach Gerry Glasco, whose team advanced to Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. championship game. “Just go up there and enjoy the moment. It was made for her as a veteran, and it was exciting to see that happen that way.”

O’Neal, who missed most of the Cajuns’ regular season with a hand injury after playing only six games with a knee injury in 2021, led off the top of the eighth inning and launched the first offering from Texas State pitcher Jessica Mullins over the right-field wall for what turned out to be the game’s lone run.

“He (Glasco) told me I was late on the ball, and I felt like that was the perfect thing to say to me, to go in there and have a game plan for my last at-bat,” said O’Neal, who has five hits and five runs batted in in three tournament games. “He told me to be on time and stick to the game plan.”

The win was the 12^th straight and the 21^st in the last 22 games for Louisiana (44-11), which advances to the title game for the eighth straight time and will be going for its sixth win in those eight championship games. Texas State (37-18) had a nation-leading 17-game win streak snapped in the Bobcats’ first loss since April 9.

The homer was the only extra-base hit in the game by either team, with Mullins and UL’s Meghan Schorman locking up in a pitcher’s duel through seven scoreless innings. Schorman (15-4) took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and scattered five hits while fanning eight with only one walk in a 132-pitch effort, and the only Bobcat to reach third base came on back-to-back Cajun errors in the first inning.

“She was phenomenal in the circle today,” Glasco said. “She dominated the game, she had great control. I thought she was able to sneak it in the edge of the zone anytime she needed to.”

Mullins (27-12) was just as much in control, scattering six hits and fanning three with only one walk on 89 pitches, and holding Louisiana to an 0-for-9 mark with runners in scoring position.

“I thought Jessica threw a great game and gave us a chance to win,” said Texas State coach Ricci Woodard, whose team will play an 11 a.m. Saturday game against the losers’ bracket survivor in an attempt to advance to the title game. “She did the same thing Jessica always does, she goes right at them. Today her changeup was working a little bit better so she was able to keep them off balance pretty well, but she also threw the ball in on the hands really well today.

“When you have a pitcher’s battle like that, you can’t afford to miss a pitch to O’Neal obviously and we did.”

The Bobcats put two runners on base on back-to-back errors in the first, but after that Schorman retired 14 of the next 15 batters she faced. Texas State also had a threat in the seventh when Tori McCann and Kylie George had two-out singles before a ground ball ended that inning and set the stage for O’Neal’s game-winner on the next pitch. Texas State had all of its five hits in the final four innings.
“We started swinging at strikes instead of balls,” Woodard said. “I thought early in the game we chased too many pitches out of the zone, and we couldn’t get enough bat on the ball. Our biggest goal as the game went on was to be more patient at the plate and try to make her throw strikes.”

The Cajuns had runners at second and third in the second on a hit batsman and Sophie Piskos’ base hit, O’Neal singled and stole second before being stranded in the third, Piskos reached second in the fourth on Melissa Mayeux’s single, and Mayeux reached second after a seventh-inning base hit. But Mullins worked out of trouble each time before O’Neal’s fourth homer of the season.

“Ever since she got back from her injury, she’s made a huge impact on our ball club,” Glasco said. “I’m glad our freshmen got to see Raina O’Neal be Raina O’Neal, and I’m glad Raina got to be Raina down the stretch this season because it’s been two years of adversity for her.”