Tuesday’s game against the University of New Orleans Privateers was bigger than your average midweek game. Since interconference play began, the Tulane Green Wave baseball team has struggled, going 3-6 in conference play with series losses to the University of Texas at San Antonio and most recently, the University of Alabama, Birmingham. 

Back home from a tough series in Birmingham, Tulane looked to finish off an intercity rivalry against UNO and take home the Pelican Cup. The game did not start out as planned, with UNO going up 3-1 through three innings, leading to coach Jay Uhlman pulling the whole team together in the dugout and giving them a much needed pep talk. 

It worked. The results came through immediately. The top of the fourth started off with back-to-back home runs from Matthias Haas and Marcus Cline. The Wave went on to shut out the Privateers the rest of the game, resulting in a 7-3 victory and hoisting the Pelican Cup trophy. 

Despite the up-and-down start to conference play, a few things have remained consistent throughout the season. The first is the consistently great play of Brady Marget, who leads the team in hits with 40, and is top five in both runs and batting average on the year. On par with Marget is Gavin Schultz, who matches Marget in total hits and has the slight nod in batting average with .331. 

In the bullpen, a bright spot over the weekend has been Jacob Moore, who currently sits with a 1.52 ERA and a 3-1 record while pitching. Moore shined this past weekend against UAB, striking out five batters in three innings, leading the team to the sole victory of the weekend. 

The main question mark going forward for the Green Wave is star player Teo Banks, who remains in the bottom half of the team in batting average and OPS — on base plus slugging percentage. Banks had a 1-5 night Tuesday against UNO after struggling the first half of the weekend against UNO. The American Athletic Conference preseason player of the year, there is still lots of time for Banks to gain some momentum as Tulane enters the next chapter of the season. 

The Green Wave hope to build off its Pelican Cup victory and move up in the conference this weekend when the University of South Florida comes to town.