You’ve got to give credit to the Northwestern State and Louisiana Christian University baseball teams for a pair of big upset victories last week.
On the same night, Tuesday, April 22, the two central Louisiana teams pulled off huge college baseball shockers. They recall some other upsets in each school’s past that are hard to top.
But that comes later.
Last week, Northwestern’s Demons pounded seventh-ranked LSU in a run-rule victory – the equivalent of a technical knockout in boxing – with a 13-3 victory in seven innings. NSU has beaten LSU in baseball several times in the last three-plus decades. But this was the first time in LSU baseball history that the Tigers – who won a SEC series against No. 5 Tennessee over the weekend — suffered a run-rule defeat by a non-conference opponent at home.
First. Time. Ever. Those three words give that triumph a distinction that is worth savoring by all involved.
LCU’s Wildcats, meanwhile, while not claiming a “first-time-ever” achievement, notched their first triumph over an NCAA Division I foe in 17 seasons, stunning McNeese State, 4-3. The last time they’d pulled off such a win – also under head coach Mike Byrnes — was in 2008 when they upset Nicholls State in Pineville, 8-3.
McNeese is no slouch. The Cowboys won their 30th game of the season over the past weekend, and they entered the game on their homefield as the 11th-best mid-major team in all of NCAA Division I baseball, according to 11Point7.com, a popular college baseball podcast.
But when it comes to upsets in LCU’s sports history, one of the best was a stunning 55-54 road basketball victory on Jan. 7, 1978 by Allgood’s NAIA Tournament-bound Wildcats over Coach Don Haskins’ NCAA Division I Texas-El Paso team.
Yet, nothing can top what happened on a Tuesday night in March of 1994.
A struggling LC baseball team, then competing in the NAIA, went to Baton Rouge and shocked the eighth-ranked team in NCAA Division I and the reigning national champions from LSU, by a 7-5 score.
It’s one of many achievements that got Billy Allgood, the iconic LC coach in basketball and baseball for many years, elected to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. After the game, he called it the “most amazing” win he had ever been a part of at LC, and he’d been coaching there since 1958.
“To tell you I thought we had a good chance of winning would be a lie,” Allgood said at the time. His team had not been playing well or with much passion before that game, but on that night, they played exceptionally well. LC won the game with an infield of nothing but freshmen, and they also had a freshman starter in right field. Sophomore pitcher Brian Madigan earned the win, relieving junior ace Lester Fontenot.
When it comes to famous upsets in NSU sports history, you might think of the 27-24 overtime football win in 2001 at TCU engineered by quarterback Craig Nall, the ASH product. Better than that is the 2006 NCAA Tournament basketball upset of Big Ten champion and third-seeded Iowa, 64-63, thanks to 18 points from Boyce native Clifton Lee, and Jermaine Wallace’s game-winning three-point shot with a half-second remaining.
That’s hard to beat, right? Nah.
The most amazing upset in NSU sports history in any sport happened at the 1981 NCAA Track & Field Championships at LSU’s Bernie Moore Stadium. The foursome of Victor Oatis of Winnsboro, Joe Delaney of Haughton, Mario Johnson of Timpson, Texas, and Mark Duper of Moreauville, coached by Jerry Dyes, won the NCAA title in the 4×100-meter relay.
Those four young men, all who hailed from within 100 miles of Northwestern, won against a field that was among the strongest ever. It featured the likes of Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker and world class sprinter Mel Lattany of Georgia. Other world class sprinters included Willie Gault of Tennessee and Ron Brown of Arizona State, who went on to win an Olympic gold medal in the 1984 Summer Games in the 4×100 relay. There were powerhouse teams from San Jose State, Arizona State, Florida State, Arizona, Ohio State and Baylor.
Adding to the panache of the surprising crown is that Northwestern is still the only school that competes at the FCS (formerly known as Division I-AA) level in football that has won a relay title at either the NCAA Division I Indoor or Outdoor Championships.
Dyes, a Shreveport native who coached that legendary NSU team, also coached NCAA shot put champion John Campbell of Louisiana Tech in 1985 and he coached Division II power Abilene Christian to runner-up finishes at the 1992 Indoors and Outdoors National Championships.
In 2006, on the 25th anniversary of the Demons’ 4×100-meter relay championship, he said, “I’ve coached for over 40 years and professionally for 32 years, and it’s the greatest experience of my coaching career.”