The Tulane baseball team did something Tuesday night it had not done in the last nine years: it beat LSU in Alex Box Stadium.
That simple victory may be just what the team needed to propel it toward a grander feat yet unaccomplished by the program in over a decade: winning 45 games in a season and working its way back to Omaha.
Every few seasons the balance of power in the state shifts and Tulane is the best baseball team in Louisiana. This is one of those years.
— Sean Fox (@fox4sportstalk) March 30, 2016
While the season is only 25 games old, the Greenies are constructing a wall of confidence joining together stout pitching (3.29 team ERA ranked in the top 20 percent of Division 1) and a big-barreled offensive attack (24 team home runs ranks No. 24 in the nation and 1st in the AAC).
Even more important, the team is winning games at a pace unseen in a long, long time and doing so against top competition.
The Green Wave have beaten all three of the top opponents they have faced this year: Arizona, LSU and Southern Miss, respectively ranked No. 20, 19 and 15 in Warren Nolan’s RPI. Not only that, but they have conquered these high achieving teams while playing away from Turchin Stadium.
Game Review: LSU
Tulane squandered zero opportunities and gave no quarter as the team decimated a struggling LSU baseball team Tuesday night in Alex Box Stadium, 7-1.
The Green Wave jumped on LSU’s starting pitching early by scoring five runs in the first two innings. The Tigers starter, Cole McKay, gave up one earned run before giving way to relievers Collin Strall — making his season debut — and Hunter Devall who combined to allow two earned runs plus another two unearned runs.
Here's the "Double Play Heard 'Round the World" with #Tulane's @NTGraff on the call: https://t.co/lUIpNiX0Qs #BelieveIt #RollWave
— Tulane Baseball (@GreenWaveBSB) March 30, 2016
Once given the lead, Green Wave starter J.P. France shutout the Tiger offense for six solid innings while earning his second win on the season. Relievers Sam Bjorngjeld and Jeremy Montalbano made haste with the last nine outs of the game allowing only three hits and one earned run.
FINAL FROM BR:
⚾️ #27 Tulane 7 – #20 LSU 1
🌊 3rd best RPI win of 2016
⚾️ 1st win at the Box in 9 years
🌊 18-7
On to the next one. #TOBTTW— Fear the Wave (@FearTheWaveBlog) March 30, 2016
LSU did themselves no favors as their team stranded six base runners, committed three errors and failed to score a single run until their last out remained in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Next Game – Weekend Series at Connecticut
Beating their bitter, in-state rival was a fitting and triumphant ending for the Green Wave’s non-conference schedule as their AAC title hopes begin in earnest this weekend on the road against the Connecticut Huskies.
https://twitter.com/TU_Dannen/status/715006486368247809
Connecticut cannot boast the same exuberant entrance to AAC play, as the Huskies schedule has played out with far less fanfare. The beasts from the northeast enter this upcoming weekend series with Tulane owning a 12-11 record.
Earlier in the season the team was riding a more seemly 8-4 record until the Huskies began a mid-March losing streak. At the tail end of an eight-game road trip on the west coast, the team tallied seven losses in eight contests, dropping them to 9-11.
Last weekend, Connecticut outlasted Columbia in a three-game set where they took the last two games of the series after losing their Friday opener, 4-3. After a mid-week matchup with Boston College — this time a road victory, 9-4 — the Huskies return home to face a Tulane team with a head full of confidence and roster loaded with talent.
Though Tulane is 5-6 away from Turchin Stadium, the team has won its last four games on foreign soil.
Looking ahead
The Greenies have the look of a team headed for 45 or more wins, something they haven’t done since 2005. That same year was also the last year the team fought their way to Omaha.
In the AAC, their toughest competition looks to be Houston and East Carolina, two teams with respectable RPIs early in the year (62nd and 24th, respectively). No one else in the conference, other than the team facing Tulane this coming weekend, holds a sub-100 RPI.
East Carolina will be headed to NOLA next Friday for a weekend series with the Green Wave. While the Cougars will play two three-game sets with Tulane: one beginning at the end of April in New Orleans and the second coming on the final weekend of the regular season.
Realistically, if the Green Wave can win a simple majority of those nine matchups, their AAC title hopes should be in excellent shape.
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