LAKE CHARLES – Shining bright like a diamond.
That's exactly what the McNeese diamond sports are doing right now – baseball and softball.
The two are on track to become the first programs in the Southland Conference to each win their respective regular season championships since, well, the two did it in 2022.
The Cowboys, winners of nine straight games, currently sit at 24-5 overall and 11-4 in conference play, one game behind HCU for first place in the standings while the Cowgirls are 28-17 overall and tied for first place in the conference with Southeastern with a 14-4 mark. The Cowgirls, who completed a three-game sweep against A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday, hold the tiebreaker over the Lions and have won five-straight games.
The Cowboys' baseball program knocked off Big 12 member Houston, 4-3, in 10 innings on Wednesday night in the opposing team's ballpark. That extended the team's winning streak to nine straight while improving its overall record to 24-5, matching the best start in school history.
The .821 winning percentage is ranked as the seventh-best in the NCAA while the win streak is tied as the third-longest current streak in Division I baseball.
Following the win over Houston, McNeese's RPI jumped from 34 to 28 and has the Cowboys in the talk for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament should they not secure the automatic berth. McNeese is ranked No. 20 in this week's 11Point7 Baseball Mid-Major rankings and received votes in the NCAA Coaches Top 25 poll.
The Cowboys will be back in action this weekend when they visit UIW for a three-game Southland Conference series and will return home next Thursday-Saturday for a league slate versus Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and will have a big showdown on April 15 at LSU. McNeese is 19-2 at home this season and has four Quad 2 wins on the year to help boost its RPI. The No. 28 ranking is currently higher than five SEC schools, including preseason No. 1 Texas A&M.
The Cowgirls, 28-17 overall, are 14-4 over their last 18 games and are a perfect 9-0 in home conference games, 18-3 overall at home with all three losses coming to teams ranked in the top 6 in the country (twice to Tennessee, once to LSU). They are the highest-ranked team in the Southland Conference with an RPI mark of 84 and have picked up five Quad 2 wins on the season.
In fact, of the 17 losses on the season, six are to SEC schools and five to ranked teams.
McNeese has three conference softball series remaining on the season – at HCU (April 11-12), vs. East Texas A&M (April 18-19) and at Stephen F. Austin (April 25-26).
The top two teams in the standings will host a four-team playoff pod on the first weekend of each sport conference tournament with a best 2-out-of-3 championship series to follow. The softball tournament will take place May 1-4 with the championship series May 8-10 while baseball's tournament first weekend will be held May 15-18 and championship series May 22-24.
