CONWAY, S.C. – Coastal Carolina will open up its Sun Belt Conference season this weekend, March 26-29, on the road at Louisiana in Lafayette, La. The two teams are scheduled to play Friday (7 p.m. ET), Saturday (3 p.m. ET), Sunday (2 p.m. ET), and Monday (Noon ET).
  • Coastal enters Sun Belt Conference play at 13-6 overall and 2-0 on the road this year.
• The Chants were picked to finish first in the Sun Belt East Division in the 2021 Sun Belt Baseball Coaches Preseason Poll.
• CCU is riding a two-game winning streak into this weekend's action and has won five of their last six games.
• On the mound, the Chanticleers have allowed just 21 runs combined over the last six games and have struck out 54 hitters over 53.0 innings during that stretch.
• The offense has five players hitting over .300 on the season and five players that have driven in double-digit RBIs on the year.
  • The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns enter the weekend at 11-10 overall but are 8-4 at home this season.
• LA has lost two-straight games and dropped seven of its last nine games overall.
• However, seven of their 10 losses have come from LSU, Mississippi State, TCU, McNeese, and Southern Miss.
• Picked to finish third in the West Division in the 2021 Sun Belt Coaches Preseason Poll, the Ragin' Cajuns did garner two-first place votes in the poll.
• The LA offense has struggled to start the 2021 season, as the Cajuns are hitting just .241 as a team and have scored only 93 runs over 21 games, an average of 4.4 runs per outing this year.
• However, the pitching has helped carry the Cajuns this year, as they have posted a team ERA of 3.98 overall, struck out 201 hitters over 192.0 innings pitched, and are holding their opponents to a .221 batting average against them so far this season.
  • Coastal Carolina trails the Ragin' Cajuns 5-3-1 overall in the all-time series with the two teams meeting every year since the Chants joined the Sun Belt prior to the 2017 season.
• CCU has won just one game in each of the three-game series versus the Cajuns, including the series finale in each of the last two three-game series.
• The two teams were scheduled to play a three-game series last season on March 13-15 in Lafayette, La. before the rest of the season was abruptly canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Coastal Carolina and Louisiana find themselves in a race that the two teams do not want to be in in terms of the strikeouts at the plate.
• The two teams are near the top of the list in all of NCAA Division I in strikeouts this season entering play this weekend as the Cajuns have the third-most strikeouts at the plate with 217 while Coastal is just one behind their conference mates with 216 strikeouts overall.
  • The Chanticleers received votes in three of the five nationally recognized polls this week.
• Coastal received votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll, the NCBWA Poll, and the Perfect Game Top 25 Poll this week.
  • The Chanticleers are 2-1 in their Sun Belt Conference series history, having swept each of their last two conference opening weekends at Arkansas State in 2018 and at ULM in 2019.
• For the fourth-straight year, the Chants will open up conference play on the road at a West Division opponent.
      Year     Opening Series          Opponent Record
      2017     at Texas State                               1-2
      2018     at Arkansas State                          3-0
      2019     at ULM                                          3-0
  • Since moving to the Sun Belt in 2016-17, the Chanticleers have had success in weekend conference series play.
• Coastal has won 21 of its 30 Sun Belt Conference series since joining the league, including winning nine of its 10 conference series in 2018.
• Overall, the Chants have lost just seven series in conference play since joining the Sun Belt, two of which were to Louisiana in 2018 and 2019.
  • While the Chanticleers will be making just their third road trip of the year this weekend to Lafayette, La., CCU has had success thus far this season in road contests.
• CCU is 3-1 on the road overall this year with a midweek road win at then-No. 16 Wake Forest (Feb. 23) and two road wins to take the series win over West Virginia (March 19-21) in Morgantown, W.Va.
  • Coastal has enjoyed #ThePalace for the first part of the season, as the Chanticleers have played 15 of their first 19 games at home in Springs Brooks Stadium and have gone 10-5 at home this season.
• Last season, the Chants were 11-4 at home overall prior to the cancellation.
• In fact, CCU played just one road game last season, a loss at then-No. 7 NC State on March 4, 2020.
• Since the 2015 season, Coastal has recorded 20 wins or more at home each year, outside of last year's shortened season, and has tallied 143 wins at Springs Brooks Stadium counting this year.
  • Head Coach Gary Gilmore enters the weekend versus Louisiana with 987 career wins as the head coach of his alma mater Coastal Carolina.
• That puts #14 just 13 wins away from 1,000 career wins over his 26 years at CCU.
 
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