Tulane Battles Early Weekend Series at Wichita Starting Tonight
The Tulane baseball team, along with the rest of the American Conference, gets a head start on their weekend series as the Green Wave are in Wichita to take on the Shockers tonight, Friday, and Sunday. Tonight and Friday's game at Eck Stadium on the Wichita State campus, begins at 6:05 p.m. with Saturday's game set for a 1:05 first pitch. All games can be heard on 88.3 WRBH with the voice of the Green Wave, Corey Gloor. The games will also be broadcast on ESPN+.
Last Time Out
The Wave is fresh off one of, if not their most complete game of the year, when, on Tuesday, Tulane downed Nicholls, 6-2. Green Wave pitching held the Colonels to three hits, giving up one earned run out of the two scored. LuisPablo Navarro had his first start on the mound since transferring from JUCO to Tulane in the Fall. The sophomore was perfect for three innings, striking out five to earn his first victory as a Greenie.
Though Tulane hitters could only manage seven, the Green Wave earned nine walks. Add to that some aggressive base running, and it was a recipe for a solid game on the base paths. The Wave consistently pushed the envelope, bunting runners up, stealing bases (two of them in the game), and using the hit-and-run often enough to keep Nicholls off kilter.
Scouting Wichita State
The Shockers are riding the top of the American Conference along with Texas-San Antonio and Alabama-Birmingham, a change for this team from the past few seasons.
"It's so fickle, the game of baseball," Tulane coach Jay Uhlman explained. "They've been at the bottom half (of the league) the last two or three years. We played them for the American Conference championship (an 11-10 Green Wave victory in 2024).
"They've very physical with the bat," Uhlman continued, "so they're very offensive. They've got a lot of new players." Thirty of the 38-players on the Shockers' roster are new to Wichita. That's even more than Tulane, who had a roster turnover of its own, getting 23 new faces this season.
Uhlman says he is going to start graduate student left-handed pitcher Jake Toporek tonight. Toporek is 0-2 on the year with a 3.32 ERA with 26 strikeouts in 21.2 innings worked. He is limiting opponents to a .241 batting average. This is his 13th appearance and third start of the season. Friday starter Trey Cehajic will be on the mound again tomorrow. The senior had another difficult outing last week, giving up 10-hits and 8-runs in 4-and-two-thirds innings. No decision has been made for the Saturday starter.
Ripples
- Four of the last seven hits for James Agabedis have been home runs.
- Tulane improved to 10-5 this year when scoring first.
- The Green Wave improved the team's record to 70-28 all-time against Nicholls. The program is now 4-2 against Louisiana opponents this season.
- Kaikea Harrison's three-hit game was his third of the season. He also leads the club with 12 multi-hit performances.
- Nate Johnson, who batted second in the lineup today, has now hit in eight of the nine positions in the lineup (2nd – 9th).
- The Tulane pitching staff, who struck out 12 in the game, reached double figures in strikeouts for the 13th time this season.
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
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.