BATON ROUGE – He struggled in his first Sun Belt Conference Tournament start, but responded by throwing 7.0 shutout innings in a win over Texas State two days later, then threw another 4.1 innings in UL’s NCAA Houston Regional-opening win over Rice.
So by the time he was done throwing 7.0 innings against No. 1-ranked LSU in Saturday night’s Game 1 of the best-of-three NCAA Baton Rouge Super Regional, only to lose 4-3 on Chris Sciambra’s ninth-inning home run off reliever Will Bacon, Ragin’ Cajuns coach Tony Robihchaux was thrilled with true-freshman righty Wyatt Marks.
The starter from St. Thomas More High went 7.0 innings, allowing four hits and three runs (two earned), six strikeouts and just three walks.
“Sometimes he’s got closer’s mentality,” Robichaux said, “and he threw against Troy in the conference tournament, and they hung five (runs) on him in the first inning, and I had to come get him, and a day later (actually two) we sent him back out again (against Texas State), and we told him just to, ‘Slow down a little bit; you know, slow you motions,’ and he threw a great ballgame for us.”
Against LSU, Marks allowed one run on in a shaky first inning and two in the third on Fraley’s two-run homer – but settled down and permitted no runs for the four innings.
“So, that’s the big thing with him,” Robichaux said. “As he settles in, and starts to pitch, that slider starts to work, and his secondary stuff gets better as he settles in and pitches.
“He did a great job for us. He could have let the game spin out of control early. Those guys (the Tigers) can spin a game out of control on you. And he didn’t let that happen.”
LSU coach Paul Mainieri was impressed too.
“I told Wyatt Marks after the game how much I thought he’d improved,” Mainieri said, “he competed really hard. His stuff was good.”
“He’s really matured,” Robichaux added. “You know, I’ve coached 29 years, and I’ve been in here (Alex Box Stadium) a lot in my career, and not many freshmen come in here and live to tell about it.”
Marks did.
Tonight another UL true freshman will learn if he can too, as lefty Gunner Leger starts on the mound against LSU lefty sophomore Jared Poche.
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