UNO Notes | McNeese Notes | Buy TicketsNEW ORLEANS, La. – After an idle week, the New Orleans Privateers baseball team (11-29, 2-19 Southland) hosts a three-game set against the McNeese State Cowboys (24-21, 13-8 Southland) starting Friday night at Maestri Field at First NBC Ballpark. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.
The Privateers took Nicholls to the ninth inning all three games, but dropped each contest by three runs or fewer. New Orleans sent the tying run to the plate in the final inning on each day. After their 4-3 loss on Sunday, dropped to 5-12 in games decided by one or two runs. New Orleans collected 30 hits off of Nicholls pitching on the weekend.
Reese Kanter had a huge individual weekend at the plate against Nicholls who came into the series with the best team pitching ERA in the conference. Kanter collected seven hits including a home run and drove in five runs.
Raymond Winter took the most recent week to lower his ERA by over a run. After picking up a two-inning save against Loyola, Winter made two appearances on the weekend and threw five more shutout frames while allowing just one walk. Winter dropped his ERA from 6.47 to 5.31. Winter has five straight scoreless appearances, his longest streak as a Privateer.
New Orleans has won 21-of-37 all-time meetings against McNeese State including a 12-4 mark in New Orleans. The Cowboys have had more recent success though after going 3-18-1 in the first 22 meetings. McNeese took two of three contests from Mar. 8-9, but the Privateers took the series finale 8-7.
The Cowboys are coming off a busy week that involved two games and the completion of another that was suspended. After McNeese finished a 5-2 loss against Houston, the Cowboys dropped an 8-2 decision to the 16th-ranked Cougars. On Wednesday, McNeese got a walk-off grand slam to defeat Southern 16-12 on Wednesday.
McNeese bounced back off a 1-5 conference stretch by sweeping Incarnate Word in their last Southland series. In two prior series, the Cowboys dropped two of three against Northwestern State and were swept by Central Arkansas.
Offensively, the Cowboys have swiped 62 bases this year and are led in that department by Andrew Guillotte who has 18 steals in 24 tries. McNeese ranks third in the conference in stolen bases behind Southeastern and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Also offensively, Jackson Gooch and Chayse Marion are in the top ten in the conference in RBIs with 35 and 32 respectively.
First pitch for the opener of the series is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
PROBABLE PITCHING MATCH-UPSFriday:
UNO-
Alex Smith (1-7, 4.64) vs.
McNeese-Kaleb Fontenot (4-1, 2.33)
Saturday:
UNO-
Nick Halliday (2-6, 4.14) vs.
McNeese-Michael Clemens (4-2, 5.45)
Sunday:
UNO-
Daniel Martinez (0-0, 6.57) vs.
McNeese-Bryce Kingsley (3-3, 5.66)
