Tulane Baseball Can Climb the American Ladder in FAU Series

Winners of two straight American Conference series and three of their last four, the Tulane baseball team heads to Boca Raton, FL to take on Florida Atlantic University this weekend. At 6-6 in league play, the Wave find itself just two games behind American-leading UAB and UTSA. FAU stands at 4-8, but won their series at Memphis last weekend.

Friday Pitching Improved

Right-handed pitcher Trey Cehajic gets the call on the mound again Friday. After struggling over the last month, the 6' 8" graduate righted himself with an outstanding outing last weekend against American rival East Carolina, going 5.1-innings, giving up only four hits, one earned run, and only walking two.

"I just did the exact same thing," Cehajic shared. "I think I've been having a really good process over the last month or so, even though it hasn't gone my way, but I'm very committed to that. I've been committed to it all year, and I know more often than not, that I'm going to have success whenever I do what I do.

"Whenever we can get ahead of guys and stay on them, early in the count, then it makes it a lot harder for them, and it allows us to get weak contact or put them away. We were throwing four different pitches kind of pretty equally, and I think that was a big thing that kind of helped keep them off balance and not allow them to just kind of sit on certain things."

Transfer First Bagger Making an Impact

On the offensive side of things, 1st baseman Trent Liolios has come into his own at the plate. The Northwestern tranfer started slowly. However, since the Memphis series, the graduate has been hitting .308.

"I think it was a combination of things," Liolios shared with us. "I'm definitely getting used to a new environment, a new team. It may have played a little role, but also I think it's the game of baseball you go through those times. So I think for me the biggest thing was just keeping the mental game right and staying steady with it."

We asked what adjustments he had made at the plate.

"Just simplifying a lot of things," Liolios said. "A lot of times in the box you can kind of do a lot and try to do a little too much at that time. So I kind of was just going back to the basics, getting back to being steady and comfortable in the box and finding the right pitch was probably the biggest adjustments I needed to make."

TU Will Have Its Hands Full with FAU

Though their record doesn't show it, this weekend's opponent, Florida Atlantic, can be tough.

"Every year that we've played them, they've been really good, and they've always played us really well regardless of how each team is playing," Cehajic admitted. "So just go in there with the same mindset and just one game at a time and just focus on what we can control."

"I think we're just starting to get to how we should be playing the game," Liolios told us when asked how Tulane is positioned to finish the season. "I think at the beginning of the year we weren't playing like ourselves, and I don't really know what that was due to, but I think right now we're just starting to scratch the surface of how we should be showing up every day. So I think if we can keep that up, we're going to be in a great spot. "

Game times for the Florida Atlantic series is set for Friday at 5:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, and an 11:00 a.m. first pitch on Sunday. All games can be heard on WRBH, 88.7 FM in New Orleans.

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