STARKVILLE, Miss. 鈥� When a head coach shuffles the lineup, he leaves himself open to criticism if the alterations don't work.
But when everything works out, all the coach can do is smile.
UL coach Matt Deggs was smiling big after Saturday's 10-4 victory over Lipscomb in the first elimination game of the Starkville Regional at Dudy Noble Field.
"It was a great day," Deggs said. "I thought it was a great response by our boys (after a 12-2 loss on Friday). The changes, I'd been messing with that in my head a little bit and went ahead and pulled the trigger on it today."
The Cajuns improved to 40-24 for the program's seventh 40-win season since 2013 and 18th overall. The victory also made it 17 straight regional appearances in which UL has won at least one game after going 0-2 in the 1998 Baton Rouge Regional.
"That was the goal, 40 wins," Deggs said. "It wasn't advancing in the regional. It was getting to 40, because it's hard to do now. It means a lot. There's a standard to uphold in this program."
UL next will face the Mississippi State-Cincinnati loser at 2 p.m. Sunday in another elimination game. The Mississippi State-Cincinnati game Saturday night ended after press time.
The alteration that produced the biggest impact was moving Mark Collins to the 2-hole. The Opelousas Catholic product responded by going 3-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs.
"The coaches had a lot of faith in me," Collins said. "I was just glad I was able to go out there and do my job and help us get started early."
Josh Lim, who got a hit late in Friday's loss to Cincinnati, came through with two hits and an RBI.
"I don't want Josh Lim to get lost in all of this," Deggs said. "I thought he had a tremendous day."
The other hitting stars for UL were Blaze Rodriguez at 4-for-5 with an RBI and three runs scored, and Colt Brown at 3-for-4 with a solo homer.
The Cajuns finished with 14 hits to six for the Bisons.
The offense wasn't spectacular in any one inning, but it was relentless with runs in each of the first five innings.
Moving Collins right behind the leadoff hitter paid dividends right away when he hit a two-run homer in the first inning. Collins then delivered a two-run single in the second inning.
"That kid right there, he's got everything that takes to play in the big leagues," Deggs said of Collins. "He comes out of a small school north of town and he's learning. You're starting to see some of that come together. And I thought him and Blaze would be really good together and it worked out that way."
Brown got into the act in the third with a one-out solo home run to left. An inning later, Lim got a leadoff single and scored on Rodriguez's RBI single.
"It was huge for us coming off a night like last night where we didn't have hardly any run support at all," Brown said. "I thought we did a good job just responding and having tough ABs all day long, and showing us that we can do this."
The Cajuns scored two more runs in the fifth when Brown and Drew Markle led off with singles and scored on a Lim run-scoring single and then a two-out wild pitch.
UL starting pitcher Ty Roman was the beneficiary of the consistent offense, although he struggled with his command over three innings of work. The left-hander allowed two runs on a two-run homer to Jordan Thomas in the third. He also allowed three hits and three walks with four strikeouts in 67 pitches.
Parker Smith provided some stability with two shutout relief innings while surrendering only one hit, one walk and striking out two over 39 pitches.
UL's third pitcher, Hayden Pearson, gave two runs, one unearned, on two hits and a walk in 1鈪� innings and 23 pitches.
Sawyer Pruitt finished off the Bisons with 2鈪� scoreless innings.
The UL defense also was solid, turning double plays in the seventh and eighth innings to squash any Lipscomb comeback hopes.
Deggs plans to start senior left-hander Andrew Herrmann in Sunday's elimination game.
"I'm going to start him and see what happens," Deggs said. "We'll see if he gives us one or 12. You don't know with him."