LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - The McNeese Cowboys opened their 2025 season on Friday at home as they hosted the Wichita State Shockers. Entering Friday the Cowboys had a 1-5 all-time record against the Shockers, their most recent games coming back in 2018 when Wichita State swept McNeese in Lake Charles to open the season.

This time around, the Pokes were hoping for a much better result vs. the Shockers to open the 2025 season.

Southland Conference preseason team selection Conner Westenburg scored the Pokes' first run of the season with a home run to left center field in the third, putting McNeese ahead 1-0.

Wichita State tied it up in the fifth as Josh Livingston took a bases loaded hit by pitch to bring Camden Johnson in from third, but after that it was all Cowboys.

McNeese regained the lead in the bottom half of the fifth as Conner Westenburg scored his second run of the night, this time scoring from first off a Matt Stancliff double to left center. Marcus Heusohn would record an RBI later in the inning with a single to left center bringing Stancliff around to score.

McNeese would add four more runs over the course of the rest of the night, Mack Brousseau recording two RBIs in the seventh, and would later score, with Matt Stancliff recording his second RBI of the night in the eighth.

McNeese would go onto win 7-1 to start the season 1-0 for the third time in four years.

Tonight it was kind of the whole thing, we played good defense, obviously what Conner (Westenburg) did, throw the guy out at the plate and had competitive bats all night," said McNeese Head Coach Justin Hill following the win. “There was a lot of really good stuff that happened tonight, like almost too much to sit there and process in a short amount of time. But good team win, we’ve been competing against each other and doing a lot of things and so it’s really good for all the hard work to pay off and kind of a good moment and just the fight that we had. Obviously we’ve got to sleep fast and get after it again tomorrow."

Saturday’s game between the Shockers and the Cowboys was moved up from noon to 11:00 AM due to the expected weather.