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Mountaineers Hold Off Late Louisiana Rally, 8-5

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Mountaineers Hold Off Late Louisiana Rally, 8-5



LAFAYETTE – App State scored 4 runs within the first two innings and added a pair of insurance coverage runs late earlier than holding off a Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns rally in an 8-5 Solar Belt Convention victory on Saturday at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Area at Russo Park.

The ultimate sport of the three-game sequence is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday. The sport will likely be streamed dwell on ESPN+ and might be heard within the Lafayette space on KPEL-FM (96.5) and worldwide on the Varsity Community app.

App State (15-10, 6-2 Solar Belt) took a 3-0 lead three batters into the sport when leadoff hitter Xavier Moronta reached on a fielding error earlier than Austin St. Laurent reached on an infield single.

Luke Drumheller would comply with with a house run over the right-field fence off Louisiana starter Jackson Nezuh (4-1) earlier than the Mountaineers added a run within the second when Braxton Church scored from third on a balk.

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Louisiana (18-9, 5-3 Solar Belt) would chip away with runs within the second and third inning. The Ragin’ Cajuns loaded the bases with one out within the second inning after Julian Brock was hit by a pitch, John Taylor singled up the center and Luke Yuhasz was hit by a pitch.

Conor Higgs’ sacrifice fly drove in Brock earlier than App State starter Bradley Wilson (2-2) received a strikeout to finish the inning.

Max Marusak led off the third for Louisiana when he reached on a two-base error and moved to 3rd on a handed ball. Ben Robichaux’s RBI grounder would rating Marusak and Heath Hood would attain on a single and transfer into scoring place on a stolen base earlier than Wilson received a strikeout and laborious liner to brief to finish the body.

The Mountaineers added a pair of runs within the fifth after Moronta led off with a single and moved to 3rd on St. Laurent’s double off the wall in middle. Hayden Cross would comply with with an RBI single earlier than Golston Gillespie’s fielder’s selection would enable St. Laurent to attain for a 6-2 lead.

App State added a run within the eighth on Moronta’s sacrifice fly to middle for a 7-2 lead earlier than the Louisiana bats would get up.

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Carson Roccaforte lined a one-out single up the center earlier than Brock scorched a liner contained in the third-base bag to place runners on first and second. Taylor then belted his third dwelling run of the season when he hit the primary pitch from reliever Collin Welch over the right-field fence to chop the deficit to 7-5.

Pinch-hitter Caleb Stelly would then hit a ground-rule double to middle to place the tying run on the plate, however Welch and reliever Dante Chirico would mix for a pair of strikeouts to finish the risk.

Gillespie added an insurance coverage run within the ninth for App State when he hit his 10th dwelling run of the season – a solo blast to left – to place the Mountaineers forward, 8-5.

Louisiana would load the bases within the ninth off Mountaineer nearer Jackson Steensma as Marusak led off with a stroll earlier than transferring to second on Ben Robichaux’s single to proper. After each runners superior on Hood’s grounder to first, Roccaforte drew a stroll to load the bases, however Steensma received Brock to foul out earlier than getting Taylor to raise a flyball to proper to report his fifth save of the season.

App State’s high three hitters – Moronta, St. Laurent and Drumheller – mixed for six of the Mountaineers’ 11 hits within the sport. Andrew Terrell went 2-for-4 for App State with Gillespie driving in a pair of runs.

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Wilson allowed a pair of hits and fanned six batters in 6.0 innings for the Mountaineers, who received their third straight sport over the Ragin’ Cajuns within the all-time sequence and claimed their second straight sequence in Lafayette courting again to 2019.

Taylor led Louisiana on the plate going 2-for-5. Robichaux and Higgs every drove in runs for the Ragin’ Cajuns, who stranded 10 runners and picked up 5 of their seven hits within the ultimate two innings.

Nezuh, who dropped his first sport in six profession choices, went 4.1 innings for Louisiana and scattered seven hits with 5 strikeouts.

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LSU football has added another Louisiana school to its 2025 non-conference schedule

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LSU football has added another Louisiana school to its 2025 non-conference schedule


LSU football completed its 2025 non-conference schedule by adding a game against another Louisiana school.

The Tigers will host Southeastern Louisiana on Sept. 20 next year. According to a copy of the game contract, LSU will pay Southeastern $750,000 for the game.

LSU had one more open spot on its 2025 schedule, and it reached the agreement with Southeastern earlier this month. The teams last played in 2018, a game LSU won 31-0 inside Tiger Stadium.

Next season, LSU also has non-conference games against Clemson, Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky. LSU opens the season Aug. 30 at Clemson in the first part of a home-and-home series. Clemson returns to Baton Rouge in 2026.

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When LSU played Nicholls State earlier this season, it faced the only in-state school it had yet to play. The Tigers now have two games scheduled against other Louisiana teams next year, and they are set to play McNeese State in 2026.



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Fewer fish spills reported after Louisiana pushes pogy boats from coast • Louisiana Illuminator

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Fewer fish spills reported after Louisiana pushes pogy boats from coast • Louisiana Illuminator


In 2022, a menhaden fishing ship and its net boats spilled about a million fish off the Louisiana coast, leaving the floating mass to rot in the summer sun. A few months later, another spill blanketed Louisiana beaches with an estimated 850,000 dead fish.

The two incidents pushed the state’s leaders to enact the first significant restrictions on the Gulf of Mexico’s largest but least-regulated fishery. Starting this year, catchers of menhaden, a foot-long fish with a host of industrial uses, must stay a half mile from much of the Louisiana coast and a mile from three ecologically sensitive areas.

The aim is to reduce the number of net tears in shallow water and ease tensions with recreational fishing and conservation groups who say the menhaden industry is damaging habitat, wasting fish that other species depend on for food and killing threatened fish that are often snagged in nets as bycatch.

As the first season with the half-mile buffer zone winds down this week, backers of the new rules are celebrating a dramatic reduction in fish spills. Just over 350,000 fish have been lost this year, a significant drop from the 1.3 million fish the industry has averaged each year over the past decade, according to an analysis by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a group that has lobbied for tougher menhaden fishing rules.

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“This data indicates that the efforts to move the industrial (menhaden) boats into deeper waters to protect nearshore, shallow habitat is paying off,” said Chris Macaluso, the partnership’s marine fisheries director.

But the menhaden industry says better nets rather than bigger buffers have played a far bigger role in reducing spills. The two foreign-owned companies that dominate the U.S. commercial menhaden fishery have replaced most of their rip-prone nylon nets with ones made of stronger materials, said Francois Kuttel, president of Westbank, the fishing arm of Daybrook Fisheries.

“It’s ten times stronger than steel and very light, but also very expensive,” he said, estimating it cost his company about $500,000 for 12 new nets. “Having fewer spills has nothing to do with buffer zones. It has everything to do with the investments we’ve made.”

Ocean Harvesters, the company that fishes for Omega Protein, also credited new nets for fewer spills.

“The combination of these new nets, and a renewed commitment from captains to be more mindful of net tears at sea, has been the primary factor behind the decrease in incidents, with only two occurring in 2024,” said Ben Landry, a spokesman for Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein.

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Also called pogy and fatback, menhaden form a foundational part of the Gulf’s food web, providing calorie-rich food for dolphins, sharks, pelicans and dozens of other marine animals.

Between 600 million and 900 million menhaden are caught in the Gulf each year, making it by far the region’s largest fishery. Louisiana’s better-known catches — shrimp, crab, crawfish and oysters — don’t amount to a third of the menhaden caught in state waters.

Much of the menhaden catch is ground up at large processing plants and then mixed into fertilizers, pig feed, cat food, fish oil pills and other uses. Bony and loaded with oil, menhaden are rarely eaten by people.

The menhaden industry opposed Louisiana’s new buffers, warning that having to fish farther from the coast would make catching menhaden harder and more costly. So far, the industry says the predictions have come true.

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“This is having a significant financial impact,” Kuttel said. “The company will lose money this year.”

He declined to cite specific numbers but said some fishing captains who work on commission have had their earnings reduced by as much as 30%.

More menhaden are caught off the Louisiana coast each year than shrimp, crab and oysters combined. (Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Program)

Menhaden fishing operations involve spotter airplanes that locate the fish, which form large schools within a mile or two from the shore. “Motherships” with 1 million fish-capacities deploy smaller boats that encircle the schools in long nets called purse seines.

At least 44 large-scale spills have happened in Louisiana waters between 2020 and 2023, with the tally rising from two in 2020 to 18 last year, according to Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries records.

Net tears caused about half the spills over the four years. Mechanical failures and overloaded nets were also listed as common causes in LDWF incident reports.

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The industry has blamed the incidents on sharks biting through nets to eat menhaden and crews miscalculating the weight and volume of some net loads.

While the Gulf’s menhaden population appears relatively stable, conservation and recreational fishing groups are concerned that the industry is taking food from predator species like dolphins, speckled trout, and redfish, which have suffered population declines in recent years. The groups also worry that nets and fishing vessels are raking across sensitive seafloor habitats.

All other Gulf states either prohibit menhaden fishing or have such strict rules that the industry now focuses entirely on the Louisiana coast, which sets no catch limits and has only recently begun limiting near-shore fishing, first with a quarter-mile buffer and then this year’s half-mile buffer. Virginia is the only other state where large-scale menhaden fishing is still active.

Almost all commercially caught menhaden are processed by two companies — Daybrook, which is owned by Oceana Group of South Africa, and Omega Protein, a subsidiary of Cooke Inc. of Canada. The parent companies have ownership links, staffing overlaps and exclusive purchase agreements with the companies that handle the fishing operations.

The Gulf menhaden industry supports 2,000 jobs and generates about $25 million in state and local tax revenue each year, according to a Westbank spokesperson.

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Recreational fishing has even more of an economic impact, say the buffer’s proponents. Anglers who fish the state’s coastal waters support three times as many jobs and produce double the annual tax revenue, according to data from LDWF.

Fishing groups say anglers have noticed an uptick in menhaden, mullet and other forage fish in the buffer zone this year. That, they hope, will lead to better fishing for sought-after catches like trout and redfish.

“Louisianans are fed up with our resources being wasted and shorelines being fouled” from menhaden spills, said David Cresson, CEO of the Coastal Conservation Association of Louisiana. “It’s refreshing to see this progress.”

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This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.



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2024 Louisiana State Fair has cameras, new security measures

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2024 Louisiana State Fair has cameras, new security measures


SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) — The rides are operating and the funnel cakes are frying. It’s the 2024 State Fair of Louisiana.

And hundreds of people made their way to the Louisiana State Fair Grounds in Shreveport on Wednesday (Oct. 30) to be a part of its first day.

This year, the State Fair is working with a new carnival ride operator, the same company that controls rides for the Texas State Fair in Dallas.

That’s not all that’s new/

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If you are planning to visit this year’s fair, here’s your First Alert to a few security measures that have been put in place to help keep you and your family safe.

  • New this year, there’s a mandatory clear bag policy. Only clear bags will be allowed on the Fair Grounds.
  • Also, there is a heavy law enforcement presence with members of several agencies working around the clock to enforce safety.
  • Before entering the Fair Grounds, everyone must go through a security screening by walking through metal detectors.
  • And all youths and minors must be accompanied by an adult each day after 6 p.m.
  • In addition, there are dozens of new cameras and monitoring devices.

You have more than two weeks to come out and be a part of this year’s State Fair with its circus, dog show, magic shows, carnival rides, food and so much more entertainment for everyone.



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