LSU, SU not scheduled to play game in 2010

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jul 3, 2009 - Page: 1C

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

There will be plenty of college baseball played in Baton Rouge in 2010, but the city’s two Division I programs won’t share the diamond together next season unless they meet in the NCAA tournament.

The LSU and Southern baseball teams are not scheduled to play each other next spring. It will be the first time since 1983 the two haven’t been scheduled to play each other — a disappointment for the coaches of both programs.

Tigers coach Paul Mainieri and Jaguars coach Roger Cador said it’s not a matter of bad blood.

“I’m very disappointed and wish we would play Southern,” Mainieri said. “We love to play them. I think the world of Roger and lot of their kids work our summer camps. We enjoy the competition and the game has always been a good thing for the city.”

The last time the Tigers and Jaguars didn’t play each other was 2003, when a game scheduled at Lee-Hines Field was  rained out.

The last year a game wasn’t scheduled between the two teams was the year before Skip Bertman arrived at LSU and two years before Cador took over at Southern.

At the heart of the disconnect for next spring is where at least one of the games would have been played.

Mainieri said he had an open slot in LSU’s schedule to host Southern at Alex Box Stadium on April 2. Cador agreed to that date but also asked for a return game at Lee-Hines Field.

When Mainieri said there was no way to work in a game at SU, Cador said the Jaguars wouldn’t play at the Box either.

“We weren’t able to come to an agreement this year,” Cador said. “Mutually, we just felt like the game couldn’t take place.”

Added Mainieri, “I told him, ‘Roger, you have to make decisions for what is best for your program.’ He did that and I respect his decision.”

Cador said he believed there was an agreement in place for the Tigers to travel across town every few years as part of a standing 2-for-1 series.

LSU played on Southern’s campus in 2008, its first game there since 2004. The Tigers and Jaguars have played on Southern’s campus only five times since Lee-Hines opened in 1991.