Tech brings the bats in sweep of JSU

Jacksonville State, meet Cole McConnell, Ethan Bates, Dalton Davis, and the full offensive firepower of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.

LA Tech offered a rude welcome to CUSA newcomer Jacksonville State in both squads' opening league series over the weekend, with the Bulldogs outscoring JSU 26-13 in a series sweep, including 5-1 in Sunday's series finale win with the Bulldogs putting up 10 hits and zero strikeouts in the finale. It's Tech's first sweep in its CUSA opening series since 2018.

Twenty-six runs. Twelve extra-base hits. Seven home runs. One big statement to start league play.

"Can't say it enough. Twenty-four games in the league. You don't have a large margin for error. There aren't 30 games. One bad weekend can throw you for a loop," Tech head coach Lane Burroughs said postgame. "Anytime you have a chance to win a series, much less sweep, you gotta do everything you can to get it. That's what we did.

"It's a different team. You get Cole back in the mix. We're better on the mound. You got two veteran defenders in the middle of the field. You got an older catcher. It's an older team. These guys are competitors and a lot of these guys have a chip on their shoulder from last year. They don't want to feel that again. It's not who you play, it's when you play them. There are going to be peaks and valleys and right now we're playing pretty well."

The Bulldogs batted .326 (33-101) for the weekend, with the team's offensive firepower on full display all weekend, whether it was McConnell launching three home runs in game two on Saturday, becoming the first Bulldog since Tim Meadows in 2001 with three long-balls in a single game, Bates two home runs on Saturday, Jorge Corona's two-run HR on Saturday. It seemed like no matter where in the lineup it started, Tech was plating runs against the Gamecocks and playing with a lead in every game from the get-go.

On Sunday, Grant Comeaux, who redshirted in 2023 after a successful prep career at Barbe, broke out of a four-game hitting slump to come up with 2-RBI single in the first inning after Bates' two-strike single put Tech up 3-0. Tech added more in the fourth inning with Kasten Furr's RBI triple and McConnell's RBI-single for a 5-0 lead.

Turner Swistak got the win after throwing five innings, allowing one earned run while striking out four batters. Sam Broderson and Ethan Bates were lights-out from there, finishing the final four innings with two hits allowed, no runs, while striking out nine batters. Broderson has not allowed a run, while striking out nine batters, in his last four innings of work.

"We went all-in with Broderson and Bates. If it would have back-fired, so be it. Those are our guys," Burroughs said. "When you got it standing there in front of you, you gotta take it. They were both phenomenal all weekend long."

And when you combine for 11 HBP/BB to just nine strikeouts at the plate to go with the extra-base power, Burroughs can leave a happy man.

"That was the point of emphasis. We struck out too much last year and that was one of the main things we said, 'We cannot strike out that much.' You look at a guy like Bates, who can drive the ball out of the park at any minute, but his two-strike approach he chokes up and hits it the other way. He takes his hits, drives in runs, gets beneath balls and gets sac flys. We continue to work on it and our guys have done a phenomanal job. Our walks and HBP combined are more than our strikeouts."

McConnell finished the weekend 6-12 with four home runs and 8 RBI, while Bates went 4-11 with 6 RBI to lead the Bulldogs in a run-filled weekend.

The turnaround is stark compared to where Tech was in its CUSA opening series last year - a home series loss to Charlotte with eight runs across the three-game battle.

Against Charlotte, Tech scored eight runs with seven extra-base hits with a .180 average (17-94) as a team, leaving Burroughs with 'a bad vibe' with his team. Through the team's first two league series of 2023, the Bulldogs managed 18 runs. Through their first three, try 26 runs.

Tech didn't win its 20th game until April 18 last year. With a week to go in March, the Bulldogs are already there (20-6, 3-0 CUSA).

And the offense has a lot to do with it.

In 2023, Logan McLeod was the only qualified Tech hitter batting .300. Halfway through this season and the first conference series in the books, Tech has seven hitters above .300: Cole (.376), Bates (.364), Davis (.342), Furr (.340), Ballard (.308), Myers (.306), Corona (.302).

Bates, who has a career-best 39 RBI already through 26 games for Tech, said the batting order breeds confidence in each other and is in a groove that's hard to describe.

“I feel like all of us at the top of the order are hitting over .300, if not better," Bates said. "I just feel like if they pitch around Cole, Dalton’s right after. That’s another dangerous guy that’s in the lineup. Then you got Jorge, me, AD [Adarius Myers] and Mike [Ballard]. It really helps us get pitches to hit and better pitches to see. It’s given us opportunities to have higher RBI counts just because those guys after us are always on base.” 

The Bulldogs return to action Tuesday in a mid-week contest against Louisiana-Monroe (13-10). First pitch is set for 4 p.m. at J.C. Love Field and will be broadcast on ESPN+.