By Andrew Riedell
A yearly tradition happens when Mardi Gras rolls around in the state of Louisiana. The tradition is the majority of southern Louisiana baseball teams schedule an away series to escape the Mardi Gras craziness that takes place in the days leading up to Fat Tuesday. LSU headed to Texas to play in a round robin. University of New Orleans traveled to Texas to play Stephen F. Austin. Two Louisiana teams decided to head even more out west, to California, to play this weekend. Louisiana-Lafayette is heading to play UC-Irvine, but the team we are going to focus on is the Tulane Green Wave who head to Pepperdine to play a three game series in Malibu, California.
Green Wave Head Coach Jay Uhlman is no stranger to the west coast, as he went to high school in Redondo Beach, California. He is in his 3rd full season as Tulane's head coach, and he has made the NCAA Tournament in his first two seasons, winning the AAC Tournament and collecting that autobid. He has also lead his team to back-to-back years of improved win-loss records as well. This year, the Green Wave are considered one of the top teams in the AAC, and I believe they could compete with East Carolina to potentially win the AAC Regular Season title.
Tulane (7-1) heads to Pepperdine (1-8) after a midweek victory vs instate rival Nicholls, as the Green Wave scored 13 runs against a weak Nicholls pitching staff. Over the course of the first two weekends, the Green Wave have scored double-digit runs in 6 out of their 8 games this season. They look to build off of a doubleheader sweep against Loyola Marymount, where they outscored them 24-4 and the aforementioned win over Nicholls. Their bats have been on fire to start off this season, as they have Junior Connor Rasmussen as one of their leading hitters as early on; he is hitting .433 with 10 RBIs with 4 extra base hits. Two other hitters that have led the charge for the Wave are Seniors Matthias Haas and Gavin Schulz. Haas is hitting .370 with 1 home run and 11 RBIs while Schulz is slashing .357 with 1 HR and 9 RBIs. Tulane returns a good chunk of their lineup from the last year, but newcomers Andrew McKenna and Jason Wachs have both been great additions to the lineup early on here for the Wave.
On the pitching side of things, the Green Wave will trot out Luc Fladda and Trey Cehajic to start off the first two games (Third game is TBA). Fladda has been ok to start off the year; he has very good stuff for a lefty, but he finds himself in trouble when he falls behind in counts. On the other side, Cehajic has been very good to start off the year, pitching to a 2.70 ERA in 10 innings with 11 Ks so far. The Wave bullpen struggled on Friday last week vs Loyola Marymount but has looked very promising so far. Some key contributors have been Gavin Smith (3 IP 5 Ks 0 Runs) and Ole Miss transfer Wes Burton, who missed last year due to Tommy John Surgery. He is someone that I think can play a huge role for this bullpen down the road. One other contributor to this bullpen that is going to continue to play a huge role is Blaise Wilcenski; the righty has a 2.84 ERA 3-0 in 6 1/3 innings.
After Tulane plays Pepperdine this weekend, they will play Long Beach State on Monday to wrap up their California Mardi Gras trip before they return home to face North Dakota State at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.
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