By JJ Sledge
The sounds of spring are slowly filling the air in Louisiana: insects buzzing past your head, the occasional rumble of thunder, and the all too familiar ding of a metal bat connecting with a cowhide covered baseball.
Which coincidentally means that we are well underway into the 2026 Louisiana Tech Baseball season.
After Tuesday night’s game against Lamar, the Diamond Dogs sit at 10-8.
Are there games Tech should have won? I would say yes, and many might agree with me. Tech had its opportunities in both the Friday and Sunday games against Southern Miss, who is better than anyone realized. Arkansas State stunned Tech and shocked many by splitting with the Razorbacks a week earlier in a series the Wolves could have swept. But having three consecutive series against future Sun Belt conference opponents simply proved what it will take to be successful moving forward.
Is there some cause for concern? Maybe. But there is no need for full blown panic.
Tech has been in storms before and weathered them fine. I talked with former Tech closer Kyle Crigger before a recent game, and he reminded me that the 2022 C-USA Championship team he was on had a couple of rounds of struggles during that season in which they eventually won 43 games and made a regional. He also said this team is more talented than that 2022 team that had the likes of Taylor Young, Steele Netterville, Cade Gibson, and many more names Bulldog fans knew well.
And as Tech enters conference play, C-USA is more open than ever. Teams expected to be front runners have had struggles out of the gate, while teams that have been mid-pack in recent years currently lead the conference. It just proves the point that baseball is the greatest equalizer in college sports. Which has been more than evident across all conferences over the past month.
All that said, there were plenty of bright spots during the first month.
Two freshmen, Thomas Allen and Casey McCoy, have stepped up to the plate and done surprisingly well. Allen has struck out over 40% of batters he has faced. And he has faced some incredibly stressful situations, including finishing the Sunday game against South Alabama for his first career save. McCoy has started 17 of 18 games and is currently third among starters in batting average. Even more impressive is how well he’s played as a true freshman at second base, and seeing how he is learning and limiting his mistakes as the season progresses.
Sophomores Brooks Roberson and Trey Hawsey are rounding back into the form that put them on all-conference teams a year ago. Hawsey’s bat has come alive in recent weeks, while Roberson is currently leading starting pitchers with a 2.21 era. Graduate transfer Colby Lunsford shot out of the gate and was second overall in the nation hitting after the first weekend. He still leads the team in batting average and has started every game at third base. And we cannot forget Cade Patterson’s program tying two grand slams in the first game of the season.
There is a quote from the movie “The Dark Knight” that says “The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.” Ernest Hemingway wrote something similar, “Night is always darker before the dawn and life is the same, the hard times will pass, everything will get better and sun will shine brighter than ever.”
And that is how I feel about this 2026 Tech baseball team. Yes, they have had their struggles early on. But this team is loaded with talent from top to bottom. We saw that during the fall ball season, and we have seen glimpses of it at times this spring.
When this team finally clicks, it is going to be something special.
So, I ask everyone to be patient. Things are going to get better. And when they do, buckle up because it is going to be a fun ride.
