BATON ROUGE — Preseason All-American leftfielder Ryan Patterson continued his impressive weekend at the plate, going 3-for-5 with two RBI, while Nick Stavinoha added three hits and three runs to lead No. 2 LSU past Arkansas-Little Rock, 11-8, in front of 4,670 fans at Alex Box Stadium on Saturday.
LSU (5-0) will go for their second straight series sweep at 1 p.m. Sunday. Junior left-hander Greg Smith (1-0, 3.18) will make his second career start. UALR (4-5) will counter with sophomore righty Trevor Clay (1-0, 7.27).
On Friday night, LSU held on to preserve a 4-2 victory in a pitcher’s duel between Lane Mestepey and Bennett Cromer. To the contrary, Saturday was a hitter’s contest as both teams combined to pound out 19 runs on 27 hits in game featuring five pitchers.
“Offensively it is going to happen for us,” said LSU head coach Smoke Laval. “The impressive part was that our outs were hard tonight, as compared to the last two games.”
Sophomore southpaw Clay Dirks (2-0) earned the win in a five-inning stint, allowing three runs (all earned) on six hits, walking two and striking out four.
“Dirks didn’t have his ‘A’ game but he hung in there, battled and didn’t give in,” said Laval.
Trojan starter Nick Enlow (0-3) suffered his third loss of the season, surrendering 11 runs (seven earned) on 14 hits in 7.1 innings of work. Enlow totaled 111 pitches after leaving in the eighth.
UALR third baseman Steve Bilokur gave the Trojans a 2-0 lead in the first, blasting a two-out, two-run homer into the left field bleachers, but the Tigers responded with two runs of their own in their half of the frame on Matt Liuzza’s solo homer — his first of the year — and Will Harris’ RBI single to right.
LSU took their first lead in the third on Patterson’s double down the left field line, scoring Bruce Sprowl from second.
The top of the fourth got off to a seemingly harmless start as Dirks set down two of the first three batters, but a two-out single by Josh Sanford, scored Tommy Bryant who reached on a walk, knotting the score at 3-3.
The Trojan defense continued to be plagued by errors, leading to the Tigers’ four-run outburst in the bottom of the fourth. Stavinoha touched home on Michael Hollander’s groundball, which was misplayed by second baseman Eric Bowman. Patterson collected his second hit of the game with an RBI single to left and Liuzza’s sacrifice fly gave the Tigers a comfortable 7-3 advantage.
LSU upped the lead to 9-3 on a pair of seeing eye RBI singles by Hollander and Sprowl in the fifth.
Dirks was relieved by Chase Dardar to start the sixth. Dardar, who made his LSU debut on Tuesday against UL-Monroe, surrendered three runs on four hits. Bowman redeemed his error by cranking a two-run homer over the left field wall, while Joe Petrino’s single cut the deficit to 9-6.
UALR continued its aggressive approach in the seventh on a leadoff double by Tim Lawrence and a walk to Jimmy Scott. Laval then elected to go to junior Justin Meier for the first time this season.
Meier, plagued by arm problems through much of the 2004 season, surrendered a walk to Bilokur, loading the bases. But the righty battled back, punching out consecutive hitters on strikeouts. Despite plunking Sanford, Meier escaped from any real damage forcing a foul out off of pinch-hitter Grant Gatlin to end the threat and leave the bases loaded.
“I could have done a little better, but overall it was a plus performance,” said Meier, who allowed one run on two hits in 2.2 innings. “Any spot where I can help my team is fine with me.”
LSU added insurance on a Hollander’s third RBI of the game on a fielder’s choice and a double from Clay Harris in the eighth, which finally chased Enlow from the game.
Meier left with two outs and two on in the ninth, giving way to Jason Determann. Determann fanned Gatlin on three pitches to record the third save of his career and first of the season.
LSU 11, Arkansas-Little Rock 8 (Feb 19, 2005 at Baton Rouge, La.)
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Arkansas-Little Rock 200 103 101 – 8 13 3 (4-5)
LSU………………