Baseball Preview: McNeese at No. 16 LSU

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - After dropping the first two games of their series against No. 25 Louisiana Tech, the Cowboys ground out a 5-2 win over the Bulldogs to avoid the sweep.

“Tech got us on Friday and Saturday, then we ended up playing a little bit better of a brand of baseball on Sunday that ended up being a good win for the boys against a good team,” said McNeese head Coach Justin Hill. “I  mean they are nationally ranked for a reason. A lesser team would have rolled over a little bit but the boys didn’t, we had a tough game, it was stressful all nine so for that I was really proud of them.”

Despite it being early in the season, McNeese has shown those tight games are where they thrive going 4-2 in matchups decided by four runs or fewer, but Hill doesn’t want those types of games to define them.

“I think one of the things I have tried to do is not give the guys a rallying cry or say hey this is what our identity is going to be,” Hill said. “Because if I am sitting there dictating what type of identity our team is going to have, that may not fit them. I know those close ballgames you want to be good in those. It takes character to win those and it takes character to overcome a tough one.”

But as the Cowboys look to build on Sunday’s impressive win, they head to Baton Rouge to face an unhappy LSU team that dropped two of three at the Shriners Classic. Tigers Coach Jay Johnson said his team has a lot of work to do after their loss to Baylor on Sunday.

“We have to go back to work, I would like for tomorrow to be an off day, it won’t,” Johnson said. “I won’t move on from the weekend until we get back to work on the next thing, and we clearly have plenty of work to do so we will work out tomorrow night and get ready for Tuesday and shuffle the deck, I’m glad we are home for the next couple of weeks more for the ability to practice and train where we can maximize that time because we need it to be the type of team that we want to be.”

The Cowboys travel to face the Tigers Wednesday at 6:30 PM.

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