STERLINGTON, La. – The #5 Louisiana Christian University baseball program is heading to the NAIA Regionals for the first time since 1987 when they were the GCAC Regular Season Champions and will now make a postseason appearance beyond the conference tournament for the first time since the 2003 NCCAA World Series, by taking down #2 Texas A&M-Texarkana for the second straight matchup, 9-7, in front of a pro-Wildcats crowd.
 
LCU withstood a pair of gut punches after taking leads in the sixth and seventh innings only to watch the Eagles come soaring back in the bottom halves including a seemingly backbreaking three-run, opposite field home run by the conference's long ball leader Hunter Reid, on top of surviving a bases loaded jam in the ninth, to win its first conference tournament championship in team history.
 
Neither starting pitcher, Trip Flotte (LCU) and Dylan Cabral (TAMUT) refused to blink in the face of danger as Flotte twirled four scoreless innings with four strikeouts and nary a walk while Cabral went 5.1 frames without giving up a run before four consecutive singles by Braden Trull, Tyler McKenna, Harrison Waxley, and finally Nicholas Brunet's which drew first blood before he struck out the final two batters.
 
Waxley and Brunet then threw the counterblows after TAMUT dropped a three-spot to take the lead, hitting a pair of two-RBI singles in a span of three hitters, to move back in front by a 5-3 margin heading into the seventh inning stretch.
 
Reid continued his reign of terror on the Cats' pitching staff, flicking a perfectly placed Kade Linn fastball that painted the outside corner over the wall for a seemingly devastating blow that gave the second-seed yet another late-game advantage.
 
The resilient men deployed by Byrnes were undeterred, kicking off the comeback in earnest with a selfless sacrifice fly courtesy of Adrian Aguilar to cut the deficit to one. A routine flyout put the rally in jeopardy, however, Trull kept the scoring train chugging along with a hard shot through the hole in left side to tie the contest. Then, one of the two championship defining moments happened, as the hero with the nation's fifth-highest batting average (.443), McKenna, unleashed his team-high seventh round-tripper of the season into the parking lot behind the right field fence as the first-base side bleachers and dugout went into mass hysteria mode as he slowly jogged around the pillows, savoring every second of the biggest hit he has ever recorded in his life.
 
Linn, continuing into his second full inning of relief on the bump, fearlessly standing face-to-face with the tall task of sitting down the heart of the Texas A&M-Texarkana lineup in the bottom of the ninth to win the ship, including Reid who had taken him deep two innings earlier. It was a promising start for the Orange and Blue as Dakota Leopold was sent back to the bench looking. Reid was smartly pitched around and walked, but then TJ Krause lofted a soft line drive into right-center to put the winning run at the plate. Linn got back on track as he got Jonathan Rios to flail in vain to put LCU on the brink of destiny. Tension hung on every pitch to TJ Hughes, strike one, strike two, every Wildcat fan in the stands and watching on the live stream held their collective breathes, strike three! . . . no just a bit outside according to the home plate umpire . . . Cats win! . .  . once again, the man behind the backstop saw differently . . . then Hughes singled past a diving Brunet to load the bases. Bases loaded, two outs, a single most likely ties the game and extra bases ends the Wildcats' season, it all came down to this at-bat versus Jarren Lewis. The right-hander got to a two-strike count and then a borderline pitch crossed the dish . . . for a moment that seemingly lasted an hour it seemed as if it would be another close call outside of the zone and then it happened . . . STRIKE THREE CALLED, THE WILDCATS ARE GOING TO THE NAIA REGIONALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 37 SEASONS!!!!
 
Players poured out of the dugout and bullpen, coaches embraced with joyful tears in their eyes, a massive dogpile of bodies were accruing on the mound, LCU, who lost Hunter Gotreaux the night before, who lost to this same team in walk-off fashion two days prior, who had to beat the fourth-ranked and three-time defending conference champions twice in a span of three days after failing to crack the win column in its previous 19 tries before the tournament, had done the seemingly impossible and became the third and final program at Louisiana Christian University during the 2023-24 athletic calendar to reach the league's mountaintop with a to be determined regional destination to be revealed here on Thursday at 4 p.m. on the NAIA YouTube channel.
 
The possible regional destinations LCU could be sent to include Fayette, Missouri, Williamsburg, Kentucky, Lincoln, Nebraska, Lawrenceville, Georgia, Lewiston, Idaho, Waleska, Georgia, Upland, Indiana, Kingsport, Tennessee, or Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
 

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