LAFAYETTE – A marathon baseball game ended after 15 innings at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field Friday night, as the Nebraska Cornhuskers outlasted the Ragin’ Cajuns to win 4-3. The game was the longest for the Ragin’ Cajuns since a 15-inning, 5-4 loss to Tulane on March 13, 1977.

The loss was also the first home, season-opening loss for the Cajuns under Tony Robichaux. Nebraska set a new school record for strikeouts in a game, fanning 22 Cajuns in the course of the 4 hour, 48 minute game.

Cajuns starting pitcher Zach Osborne did not earn a decision in six full innings of work, allowing seven hits, two runs, one earned, while issuing no free passes and striking out two. Greg Harmon threw one inning of stellar relief in the seventh, downing three batters in a row including one strikeout.

Justin Robichaux entered the game in the eighth with a one-run lead, but allowed the tying run to score in the ninth. He left the game after the twelfth, allowing just the one run and five hits, with five strikeouts in 20 batters faced. He was relieved by Blake Haagen, who struggled, hitting the first batter he faced and walking the second. He was replaced by Randall Bulliard without registering an out.

Bulliard finished the game with three innings of relief, but allowed the go-ahead run, unearned, on two hits, two strikeouts, and one walk. He was saddled with the loss, moving to 0-1 on the season.

Nebraska’s Eric Rose was the last pitcher to enter the game from the visiting bullpen, finishing off 1 2/3 innings, allowing one hit on three strikeouts to pick up the win. Four other pitchers faced the Cajuns, with starter Mike Mariot giving 5 2/3 innings and fanning eight Cajuns, but  walking away without decision.

Offensively, the Cajuns’ failed to produce much, getting just nine hits to Nebraska’s 14. The lone highlight was Chad Keefer, who finished his first NCAA Division I baseball game 4-of-7 with a run scored. Three Cajuns batters totaled seven at bats, one more than the last time any Cajun hitter went to the plate seven times, ironically against Nebraska in game two of the May 3 doubleheader last season.

Both teams traded runs in the second, and Nebraska went ahead by one in the third.

The  Cajuns and the Huskers went scoreless in the fourth and fifth innings, and Nebraska was quiet in the top of the sixth as well.

In the Cajuns sixth, freshman Les Smith put an 0-1 fastball into center field, scoring Travis Whipple from third to tie things back up at two each. Chad Keefer moved from first to third on the play. It would be the first of two runners-on-the-corners, two-out RBI singles as Kyle Bostick dropped a line drive just shy of the right fielder, scoring Keefer for the lead. Matt Hicks went down swinging to end the rally.

Nebraska tied up the game on two extra-base hits in the top of the ninth off of Robichaux. The two extra-baggers equaled the number Robichaux gave up in all of 2008. Adam Bailey led off with a double down the left field line, and scored when D.J. Belfonte tripled down the same side. The Cajuns got out of the inning without further damage.

The Cajuns tried but could not get anything going in the bottom of the ninth, leading to bonus baseball for the 2,715 fans in attendance. The game was the second consecutive contest in the UL-Nebraska series to go into extra innings, following last year’s 14-inning affair in game two of a May 3 doubleheader. That game had been the longest for the Cajuns since a 14-inning game against Middle Tennessee in 2004.

The Huskers struck out to open the 15^th, but first baseman Tyler Farst then posted an infield single against Randall Bulliard, who had taken the mound in the 13^th for the Cajuns. The next batter popped out, but another single got through the right side of the infield, advancing Farst to second. A Matt Hicks throwing error on the next play allowed Farst to score the unearned run before the inning ended in the next at bat.

Nebraska defended the one-run advantage after giving up a hit to Chad Keefer. Rose induced outs against the next three batters to conclude the game and finally send fans home at 11:18 p.m.

The series continues Saturday with a 2 p.m. doubleheader. Game one will be televised on MyKLAF-TV.

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