We saw some mixed results this week across the baseball and softball softball diamonds.

Lane Burroughs team defeated Grambling on Tuesday night before taking two out of three from Kennesaw State at home this weekend.

The Diamond Dogs are now 17-11 overall and 4-2 in C-USA action.

Josh Taylor's team defeated Northwestern State in midweek action but dropped two of three at Western Kentucky this weekend.

The Bulldogs are now 21-13 overall and 8-4 in C-USA action.

Let's dive in.

Three Things We Learned

1 — Starting Pitching Standouts

Landon Fontenot, Grant Hubka, Luke Cooley, and Brooks Roberson got starts on the mound for the Diamond Dogs this week.

The quartet combined for a 1.37 ERA across 19.2 innings pitched.

Cooley did not allow a hit in eight innings of work against Kennesaw State on Saturday. The left-hander struck out a career-high 10 hitters and earned his fourth win of the season.

2 — Michael Ballard finds his stroke at the plate

Michael Ballard leads Louisiana Tech in home runs (5) and RBI (21).

However, coming into the weekend the Tech second baseman only had one multi-hit game since March 2nd.

That changed on Saturday and Sunday when Ballard collected five hits in eight at bats.

For the week, Ballard hit .438 and now has hits in 11 of his last 13 games.

Yes, the standard that the Longwood, FL native has set for himself is such that we study multi-hit games versus just games in which he manages *only* one hit.

3 — Offensive Struggles on the Road

Josh Taylor's club managed to score only two runs in the two losses at WKU this weekend.

Tech hitters managed to hit only .149 in the two games.

It happens, but it still doesn't make it feel any better when you're facing a WKU team that entered the weekend at 2-6 in league play.

Two Questions Going Forward

1 — Can Reagan Marchant continue to deliver the pop in the middle of the Tech order?

It's not secret that this version of the Tech softball team has much more power than it did a season ago.

Heck, the Bulldogs have already hit 27 homes runs this season in 34 games after hitting only 21 the entire 2024 season.

A big reason for the power surge has been Reagan Marchant. The South Carolina transfer has 10 home runs already.

Marchant became the first Bulldog player to have double-digit home runs since Maddie Green hit 13 in 2022.

2 — Can the Diamond Dogs stay hot?

Lane Burroughs team has won 8 of its last 11 games and is now 17-11 overall and 4-2 in C-USA play.

The 4-2 record in conference play has the Bulldogs in a tie for first place.

This week will be challenging with road trips to LSU & UL-Lafayette before returning home to host FIU this weekend.

One Prediction for Next Week

Sebastian Mexico hits two home runs this week.

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