Baseball | 4/30/2015 4:46:00 PM
ABILENE – The ACU Wildcats are back in Louisiana this weekend for their final Southland Conference road series of the season, and they're in Cajun Country looking for a bit of history for their head coach and some momentum of their own going into the season's final 14 games.
The Wildcats will take on last-place New Orleans in a three-game series at Maestri Field that begins Friday at 6:30 p.m. and continues Saturday at 2 p.m. before wrapping up with a 1 p.m. game Sunday.
Britt Bonneau – in his 19th season as the Wildcats' head coach – needs just one win to reach 700 in his career, all of which will have come at ACU. One win would push Bonneau to the 700-win plateau and would make him the 77th active coach in all of NCAA collegiate baseball (Divisions I, II and III included) to reach that number.
Bonneau enters this weekend's series with a career mark of 699-391-1 (.641 career winning percentage), all of which has happened while wearing the Purple and White.
"I've been very fortunate to have a lot of great players and assistant coaches help our program win a lot of games over the last 20 years," Bonneau said. "The guy who's been with me the longest is (associate head coach)
Brandon Stover, and I couldn't have done this without him. Wins have been a little bit tougher to come by during this transition, but we're going to keep working to get this program back where everyone expects it to be.
"It's special to me that everything I've done as a head coach has come at ACU," he said. "This university means a lot to me and my family, and to be able to represent ACU means more to me than anything else."
Aside from looking for win No. 700 for their head coach, the Wildcats head into the final 14 games still with a chance to match last year's total of 18 wins, but, more importantly, move up in the Southland Conference standings into a position that would put them in the conference tournament if they were eligible. ACU is currently in 11th place in the league standings, but with a good weekend and a poor weekend by teams in front of them, the Wildcats could find themselves as high as seventh place in the league.
After this weekend's series at UNO, ACU will return for next weekend's series against Northwestern State before playing at TCU on May 12. The Wildcats are then home May 14-16 against Incarnate Word before going to Arizona to take on Arizona State on May 19, Arizona (May 21-22) and Hawaii (May 23).
Bonneau will send three right-handers to the mound in starting roles: freshman
Drew Hanson on Friday, senior
Thomas Altimont on Saturday and sophomore
Garrett deMeyere on Sunday. Hanson is 1-2 with a 3.79 ERA, Altimont is 2-7 with a 3.96 ERA and deMeyere is 2-4 with a 4.78 ERA. Alitmont thew a complete-game six-hitter to beat Stephen F. Austin last Saturday, his third complete game of the season and fifth quality start on the year. He allowed just two runs as he lowered his conference ERA to 2.01.
The Wildcats are hitting just .240 as a team, led by senior first baseman
Tyler Eager (.276, 1 home run, 24 RBI) and sophomore
Aaron Draper (.274, 0 home runs, 11 RBI).
New Orleans is hitting .268 as a team, led by Matt Rykaczewski's .326 batting average. Ryan Calloway is hitting .318 with one home run and 15 RBI, while Jonathan Coco is hitting .314 with 17 RBI.
UNO's starting rotation is undecided, but the Wildcats figure to face three starters out of this group: Alex Smith (3-6, 2.86 ERA), Jordan Priddle (4-4, 5.15 ERA), Daniel Martinez (1-3, 5.93 ERA) or Shawn Sample (2-3, 2.13 ERA).
