Tulane Baseball Welcomes Creighton to Uptown
The Tulane baseball team comes back home after back-to-back road trips against Top-20 teams to entertain Creighton this weekend. Friday night's game is set for a 6:30 p.m. first pitch at Turchin Stadium. Saturday is set for 2PM, and Sunday's final of the series has been moved up to a Noon start to accommodate Creighton's travel plans.
Tough Loss Tuesday to #3 Mississippi State
The Green Wave are coming off a "close but no cigar" game against 3rd ranked Mississippi State on Tuesday, falling 11-7 to the Bulldogs in Biloxi.
"You know what, first at bat of the game was an 11-plus pitch walk against a really good arm," Tulane coach Jay Uhlman told us. "That was one thing that I thought we did a really nice job of all night was handling the real quality of their arms. They have really, really good arms. I was so proud of how we took at bats off those guys."
The Green Wave led 7-2 going into the bottom of the 7th, but the Bulldogs stormed back to take the lead by game's end.
"The fact that we were able to do that again against a highly ranked opponent, in this case number three in the country, that part, I feel good that there are things in there that were close," Uhlman continued. "Like I told the guys, getting there and close and playing that way and being in the game are one thing. Now the next step in the evolution is to get (win) a game like that."
Pitching Changes for This Weekend
The coaching staff has made some changes on the mound for this weekend. Saturday starter, Beau Sampson, has had trouble for the last three weekends. Sunday starter Jack Frankel will move up to the Saturday slot.
"Beau's going to go to the bullpen, so we'll move Frankel up into Saturday and then world-famous TBA on Sunday, and we'll see what we've got to match up with on Sundays. Placing him (Beau) in the bullpen, may help get his head back where it belongs, that's going to be contingent on his attitude. He's got to be able to embrace that change.
"He's got to roll up his sleeves and work on a few things and really get back to rhythm and confidence. That doesn't magically appear. You've got to be able to work at that, and then the opportunities that he gets out of the pen, he needs to execute the pitch and the plan."
We got to speak to the former Sunday now Saturday starter, Jack Frankel this week. We asked him about how he got Uptown, his regimen of preparation, and what he is wanting to see for his team against Creighton.
The interview can be seen on our YouTube channel. The specific link to the Frankel interview can be found here. There are dozens of other videos you can find there, including our regular coverage of Tulane Spring Football.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.