The Texas State Bobcats welcomed longstanding Sun Belt rival Louisiana back to San Marcos for one last go as conference foes over the weekend at Bobcat Ballpark.
Texas State played its best baseball of the season, sweeping the 25th-ranked Ragin’ Cajuns and saying au revoir to an old foe in dominant fashion.
From power pitching to power hitting, here are three key takeaways from the Bobcats’ sweep of the Ragin’ Cajuns.
The return of “Slam Marcos”
In 2022, Texas State baseball set a program record with 87 home runs in a single season. During that historic year, San Marcos became known as “Slam Marcos.”
The power numbers dropped at a steadily every season after, but after three days against Louisiana, Texas State sent a reminder that the “Slam Marcos” is alive and well.
Seven different Bobcats combined to hit eight home runs against Louisiana in Sunday’s finale en route to a 16-6 run-rule victory to complete the sweep. Sophomores Ethan Farris and Dawson Park each hit two home runs, while senior Chase Mora inched closer to the all-time career home run record, now sitting only two behind Paul Goldschmidt.
In total, Texas State finished the weekend with 12 home runs over the course of the three games.
“It was monumental to keep [the home runs] going,” Texas State head coach Steven Trout said. “Get a couple homers in there … you just gotta keep doing it, and they fed off each other, and it eventually became ‘I don’t want to be the guy to let the team down.’”
Pitching stabilizes
The Bobcats’ pitching staff bounced back from a poor weekend in Monroe, La, where they gave up 36 runs in three games to the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks, March 13-15.
“[Louisiana] was really good and we knew that coming in,” junior pitcher Jesus Tovar said. “We said we weren’t going to panic, we knew what we had to fix, so we fixed it this weekend and came out with a sweep.”
Friday night starter Kyle Froelich tossed 7.0 innings of one-run baseball in the series opener, punching out 10 batters and at one point, retired 16 straight Cajuns.
Because typical Saturday starter Nolan Moore is out for the season with an unspecified arm injury, the role of game two starter turned to junior righty Sam Hall, who has been a stable presence for the Bobcats over the last few years, but is hit or miss at times in his starts.
On Saturday, Hall gave the Bobcats a strong enough start before turning the ball over to the eventual winning pitcher in sophomore Cade Smith. Smith fired the final 4.2 innings, shutting out the Cajuns over the remainder of the game.
Tovar had an uncharacteristically rough outing against the Warhawks, but returned to form with five strong innings en route to picking up his fifth win of the still-young season.
“I’ve got all the faith in the world in [Tovar],” Trout said. “He’s a veteran that knows how to get outs … really good job by him.”
Momentum builder
Baseball is a game of momentum and heating up at the right time. A single win can carry a team through several series afterwards, and a big series win can propel a team through a majority of the season.
For Texas State, the sweep of maybe their biggest in-conference rival figures to be a huge step into getting the club where it wants to be come conference and NCAA tournament times.
A strong start to the season was derailed after five consecutive losses to Texas, Texas A&M and a sweep at the hands of Louisiana-Monroe. But a sweep of a top-25 opponent should signal to everyone in the clubhouse and everyone watching that Texas State, when playing well, looks to be a team to be reckoned with this season.
The Bobcats will seek to keep the momentum going into a 6 p.m. showdown on Tuesday, March 24, as they host the UTRGV Vaqueros at Bobcat Ballpark. The game will be available to stream on ESPN+.
