Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns Softball Guaranteed A Trip to Oklahoma
A trip to Oklahoma City to play in the College Softball World Series is the goal of every college softball team in America. Come the 2024 season, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns are guaranteed to play the Oklahoma Sooners in Oklahoma. A tall task indeed for the Ragin' Cajuns to play the defending National Champions.
Louisiana's Head Coach Gerry Glasco hopped on Thursday's SportsChat to, among other things, discuss the upcoming season's schedule.
Yeah, we're gonna play a really, really good schedule. I want to get our season ticket sales up. That's our main goal this fall. We want to really keep building our program.
We've gone up the last three years in season tickets and I want to get it in our fan base deserves the best games we can get at home.
And to get those games at home, we’ve had to go on the road a little bit the last couple of years and we've had to show the world and play a top top schedule. And we did last year. I think our out-of-conference was number three and our overall schedule was number seven toughest schedule in the country. And this year is going to be even better.
So here's kind of how it's going to go and we got a lot of home games. We’ve got the University of California, a Pac-12 school, they should finish somewhere between 3rd and 5th in the Pac-12 this year and they should be a Top 25 team. We've got them coming on Opening Weekend and they’ll play two games against us on our field.
And then we'll go to Mississippi State on Tuesday. We are in Mardi Gras. We'll go to Mississippi State and play a doubleheader against an SEC school there. And then we come back home on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we'll play a Baylor team, they’ll be a Top 25 team. So our fans will get five games at home. And in the first eight, nine days of the season against Top 25 teams.
Then beyond that, the following weekend, we'll go over to Texas and we're going to play Stanford University, who is really really good. They’ve got probably the top pitcher in the country in their program in Sophomore (NiJaree) Canady.
And it's only a six-hour drive or fan to build a watch. And then we'll play the University of Texas twice. Those games will be on the Longhorn network. So if I don't want to go our fans will be able to see us play there. But hopefully, we'll have a big following over to Texas and we'll pack that stadium with Cajun fans. It's only about a 5.5, 6-hour drive. And Austin's a great place to go. So I'm hoping we'll have a huge crowd there to the place that has three Top 10 teams right there, Stanford and Texas.
And then the following weekend, it doesn't get any easier. We're going to go to the new grand opening of the Oklahoma Love Stadium. So we're going to Oklahoma and we're going to play Oklahoma twice.
You are a glutton for punishment.
If you want to be the best, you gotta beat the best. So and we're gonna learn, you know, and if we win, we win or we lose, we’ll learn why we lost and we’ll get tougher. And I think that's what we did really good last year. We lost some games, a lot of games, but we became a very tough ballclub at the end of the year. And that's my goal again this year.
So while we're at Oklahoma, it's not an easy tournament. North Carolina from ACC is going to be there. Liberty who’s always a Top 50 program. The great Dot Richardson's coach them, we’ll play them and then I think Tulsa is trying to get in so that we're that's going to be a five-game field is going to be really good.
Then the following week we're gonna go play Central Arkansas, who's been a powerhouse the last couple of years and been a Top 30 RPI for the last two years I think or Top 35, they have wins against LSU and Power 5 schools. So that'll be our fifth week.
LOUISIANA RAGIN' CAJUNS SOFTBALL HEAD COACH GERRY GLASCO
And then we go into our conference for Sun Belt Conference. And then the two games with LSU this year, are Tuesday night. So we'll go over to LSU I don't know the date. It was like March, is a little bit later. And then they'll come to us I think in April.
So we got to late season games against a powerhouse LSU team, which will help us to be I hope ready for that regional. This schedule should get us a really really good opportunity to host a regional at home. And if we can meet all our expectations, I think the opportunity also be there for a Super Regional.