The New Orleans Privateers baseball team will travel to Houston this weekend for a Southland Conference series against the HCU Huskies, with the first game scheduled for Friday, Apr. 16 at Husky Field.
This matchup is important as both teams are competing for a spot in the conference tournament. The Privateers are currently two games behind HCU, who hold the eighth and final qualifying position with four series left in the regular season.
The pitching rotation for New Orleans features William Andrade on Friday, Riley Marcotte on Saturday, and Reid Leonard on Sunday. Their recent win over Troy marked their fifth extra-inning game in eight contests and included three home runs, highlighted by Eli Tidwell’s game-tying homer in the eighth inning and Josh Hoffmann’s walk-off single.
New Orleans has scored ten or more runs twelve times this season and leads the Southland Conference in hits while ranking fourth in total runs scored. The team has also shown improvement defensively, recording only two errors over their last ten games since Mar. 29, which raised their fielding percentage from .960 to .973—now fourth-best in the conference.
HCU enters the weekend as defending Southland postseason champions after winning two of three games against first-place Northwestern State last week. Their offense is led by Jack Walker with a .338 batting average and 26 RBIs, while Saturday starter David Lopez has tallied 50 strikeouts over 35 innings pitched this year.
Looking ahead, New Orleans will face HCU and Nicholls on the road before hosting Lamar and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at home as they continue their push to qualify for postseason play.
