Cowboys hope to build off of Sunday’s come from behind win

Lake Charles, LA (KPLC) - It’s safe to say, McNeese’s conference-opening series against Houston Baptist didn’t go as planned. In game one, HBU hit a game-tying home run in the eighth, then a game-winning home run in extras. A slow start would then doom the Pokes in game two. However, once again, McNeese closed out a series well with an impressive 10-run eighth-inning comeback on Sunday in game three.

“Well in one game, I did not like the eighth inning, and in the last game, it was my favorite inning ever,” said Pokes coach Justin Hill. “The problem is when you flush things, you flush everything down. That is the problem, when you pull weeds, sometimes you pull good stuff too. They say if you are going to win one, then win the last one because that is the one that stays with you, but as much as I am excited about that inning, I look at the totality of it and if you want to sustain success and if you want to have that again and if you want to repeat it, it’s got to be a recipe. That is what successful franchises do. There is a playbook and you follow it because that is just how it works.”

McNeese has had a mixed bag of results so far this season and it shows with their .500 record. Hill attributes this to the Cowboys still searching for their baseball identity.

“Do I think there are some confidence issues? I do. I do,” said Hill. “I think it’s more of an identity thing than anything, I think we are still trying to figure out who we are. But it’s good to get out of there with a win and obviously, we are not satisfied with that and we are going to be playing a good team this weekend going down to Thibodaux and looking forward to making some improvements and getting to play some better baseball.”

The Pokes hope to keep playing better baseball when they host southern on Wednesday before traveling for their first in conference road series against Nicholls this weekend.