The Ragin’ Cajun softball team leaves for Birmingham on Thursday after splitting two games with No. 7 LSU over the weekend.
Next up at the UAB Blazer Classic, Louisiana will face big road tests against No. 8 Oklahoma State and Ole Miss.
Head Coach Gerry Glasco sees the daunting schedule as a welcomed opportunity.
“The more we play these big teams and tough schedule, it’s just gonna give us an opportunity to get back to the Sun Belt, and work the last 30-45 days of the season,” Glasco says. “We can work on things that we’ve learned. We can work on cleaning up things where we’re vulnerable.”
Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns Softball, ranked as high as No. 9 in the national polls, competes on the road for an entire weekend for the first time in the 2020 season, participating in the UAB Blazer Classic at Mary Bowers Field in Birmingham, Ala.
During the weekend event, the Ragin’ Cajuns are set to face nationally ranked Oklahoma State and Ole Miss twice each.
No. 9 Louisiana (7-2) opens play in the Blazer Classic on Friday, Feb. 21 with matchups against No. 8 OSU (6-3) at 12:30 p.m. and host-UAB (8-3) at 5:30 p.m.
A doubleheader with OSU and Ole Miss (2-8), beginning at 10 a.m., follows on Saturday, Feb. 22, then the Ragin’ Cajuns wrap up their stay in Birmingham on Sunday, Feb. 23 with an 11 a.m. matchup against Ole Miss.
The Ragin’ Cajuns are in the midst of a stretch – that began with last weekend’s home-and-home against No. 7 Louisiana State – in which the squad plays 11 games against Power 5 teams that were all preseason ranked, and all appeared in the 2019 NCAA Super Regionals.
Louisiana is currently 1-1 is this key phase of its pre-conference schedule after splitting the two games with Louisiana State last weekend, claiming a 2-1 win at Lamson Park on Saturday before being edged 4-3 in Baton Rouge on Sunday.
It’s the first-ever visit to UAB’s Mary Bowers Field for the Ragin’ Cajuns. It’s also the last tournament setting of the non-conference portion of the schedule, as in the final weekend of non-conference action the squad faces Florida in a three-game series.
