NEW ORLEANS - If somebody had told Tony Robichaux that his University of Louisiana baseball team was only getting nine hits Saturday, and the Ragin' Cajuns were going to leave 11 runners on base, he would have been making plans to go home.

Instead, the Cajuns reverted to what made them successful through the first three months of the season - sheer aggressiveness - and advanced into day three of the NCAA Tournament's New Orleans Regional.

The Cajuns scored in five different innings and took full advantage of their nine hits, nine walks, six stolen bases - one of home - and five Southern errors in a 9-1 victory over the Jaguars in Saturday's regional elimination game.

"We're a lot better ball club when we can be the aggressor," Robichaux said. "It's tough to do that when you spot somebody four runs like we did last night, but today we were able to run more."

Saturday's win followed a 7-5 loss to Alabama in Friday's opening round, and put the Cajuns (48-18) into another elimination game and another meeting with the Crimson Tide today at 2:30 p.m. Alabama (39-22) lost to Tulane 10-4 in Saturday's late game.

UL is tentatively scheduled to pitch senior lefthander Austin Faught (12-0), the Sun Belt Conference's Pitcher of the Year, in today's game. Faught has been battling a sore elbow all week, but Robichaux said Faught threw without pain early Saturday afternoon. If he cannot pitch, senior righthander Jered Salazar (6-2) will likely start.

The Cajuns took their second win of the year over the Jaguars (29-18) thanks to four runs in the first two innings and a rock-solid pitching performance both by freshman starter Hunter Moody and senior reliever Micah Cockrell.

Moody (2-0) allowed five singles and no earned runs in 5 1/3 innings of work, with the Jags' only run coming on a two-out error in the fifth. Cockrell came on to retire the first seven batters he faced, and only a pair of ground-ball singles in the eighth marred his five-strikeout effort.

More than anything else, Moody took Southern out of its free-swinging game. The Jaguars had 13 hits in their 17-7 loss to Tulane in Friday's tournament opener.

"We knew that Southern usually sits on the fast ball," Moody said. "I wanted to throw the off-speed pitches for strikes, and not have to serve the fast ball up to them. I wanted to keep them off-balance."

The same could be said of the Cajuns' offense, which bedeviled previously unbeaten Jaguar starter Damien Givens (7-1). UL got only one hit in the opening inning but took advantage of two stolen bases and two walks to take a 1-0 lead.

But UL's running game was only getting warmed up.

Walks to Jameson Parker and Justin Merendino set up John Coker's RBI double in the second inning, and one out later Jonathan Lucroy singled home Merendino and chased Givens. That brought on Jaguar reliever David Bayless, and with the speedy Coker at third base UL assistant John Szefc had an idea.

"Coach Szefc came in the dugout (during the pitching change)," Robichaux said, "and he wanted to time up the pitcher. He felt that we could steal home if the situation ever worked itself to a full windup."

That happened when Bayless hit Dallas Morris to load the bases with two outs, and on the second pitch to Jefferies Tatford all three runners broke when Bayless went into the windup. Coker got in well under the tag of catcher Brandon Mason as the front end of a triple steal that made it 4-0.

"Coach told me before the first pitch to get my timing down," Coker said. "On the second pitch, he gave Tatford the signal and I just tried to take it in hard and dirty."

"When the pitcher makes a mental mistake, it's easy," said Southern coach Roger Cador of the steal. "The surprise of it made him slow his windup, and he really didn't know what to do. You hate to see that from a senior, but it occurred and that's part of baseball."

At that point, Moody had retired the first six Jaguars he faced, and three SU hits and a walk in the next two innings didn't do any damage thanks to a pair of Jaguar runners caught trying to match the Cajuns' stolen base tally.

"Hunter has great command for a freshman," Robichaux said. "He's been getting deeper and deeper into games all season. Southern's a good hitting team, but we thought he was a good matchup because he can change speed."

"He had control of the strike zone," said Cador. "He got ahead, and we chased pitches out of the zone. He really took away our aggressiveness."

"We're an aggressive team," Mason said, "and he kept us off stride with his off-speed stuff."

Southern got its only run in the fifth when Mario Spann had a leadoff single and eventually scored when Cajun shortstop Jameson Parker couldn't handle Mason's two-out ground ball. Moody got one out around a pair of hit batsmen in the sixth before Robichaux brought on Cockrell, who promptly fanned Spann and Kevin Cox to end the threat.

A walk to Coker, a steal and Josh Landry's RBI single had given UL the first-inning lead, and Landry also had a hand in making it 5-0 with his first triple of the year in the fourth inning. Lucroy, who finished with three hits and two RBI, followed with a run-scoring single.

The Cajuns iced it with two unearned runs in the eighth when SU committed three errors, and doubles by Morris and Justin Morgan and the Jags' fifth error added the final runs in the eighth.

"We got off to a good start, and that's what we've done all year," Robichaux said. "When we struggle is when we're behind early. The bigger key is that we have to keep playing to win, and not playing not to lose. Some teams get to this point and play not to go home instead of being aggressive."

Originally published June 5, 2005