Troy carries win streak to ULL
Published 11:24 pm Thursday, April 4, 2013
Troy will look to ride its seven-game winning streak as the Trojans travel to face Louisiana-Lafayette in a Sun Belt match up beginning tonight.
The Trojans swept Middle Tennessee State, extending their Sun Belt Conference win streak to five games, last weekend and defeated Alabama State on Tuesday.
The three-game series between Troy and the Ragin’ Cajuns is set to start with a 6 p.m. first pitch tonight. Saturday’s contest will kick off at 6 p.m. as well with Sunday’s game set for a 1 p.m. start time.
Troy (20-7, 6-3 Sun Belt) faces a Louisiana-Lafayette (20-8, 4-5) squad that has won nine consecutive home game.
Troy’s pitching staff has been solid of late holding opponents to a .180 batting average over the six-game streak and have posted a 1.38 ERA in that time.
Tanner Hicks (3-1, 3.76) will get the nod tonight in the opener. Hicks did not allow an earned run against Middle Tennessee State in his last outing.
Will Starling (4-2, 4.96) turned in possibly his best performance of the season last Saturday when he tossed seven scoreless inning against MTSU and struck out eight. Starling is schedule to start for the Trojans on Saturday.
Sunday’s Game 3 will feature undefeated southpaw Shane McCain (5-0, 3.46). McCain struck out nine Middle Tennessee batters in seven innings in his last start and has 43 punch outs in 29 innings this season.
ULL ranks second, behind only Troy, in the conference in batting with a .306 team average. They are fourth in the league in doubles (58), second in triples (9) and third with 24 home runs.