BATON ROUGE — The fifth-ranked LSU baseball team held on for a 6-5 victory over Arizona State on Friday night at Alex Box Stadium, ending its two-game losing streak.
The Tigers (12-4) host Western Illinois (4-10) in the second game of a doubleheader at 4 p.m. Saturday. The Sun Devils (11-11) will face Western Illinois in the first game of the twin bill at noon.
Senior Lane Mestepey (4-1) worked a season-high eight innings Friday to pick up his fourth win of the season and 33rd of his career. The lefty scattered nine hits and five runs (three earned), walking none and striking out five. Mestepey moved into a tie for second place in LSU career victories with Stan Loewer (1984-87).
Right-hander Zechry Zinicola (2-2) suffered the loss, working 3.1 innings and allowing six runs on seven hits. He walked three and struck out one.
Blake Gill, starting at third base for the first time in his career, collected his first three-hit game of the season, going 3-for-5 with a run and one RBI. Second baseman Clay Harris added a pair of hits and two RBI.
The Tigers trailed for the third time in as many games as ASU posted a three-run second inning off of Mestepey to take a 3-1 lead. Two uncharacteristic hit batsmen and back-to-back RBI singles by Andrew Romine and Joe Persichina highlighted the frame.
“When you hit a guy to open up the inning, they kind of got some momentum going,” said Mestepey. “I knew I had to shut them down from there. They hit a lot of groundballs, and we made the plays, for the most part.”
LSU regained the lead in the third as the top four hitters in the order collected hits, closed out by Clay Harris’ two-run double to right.
Quinn Stewart, making the start in left field, added his first homer of the year in the fourth, sending a two-run shot just over the right field wall to increase the advantage to 6-3.
ASU closed the gap in the eighth, bringing the tying run to the plate after scoring two unearned runs on a sacrifice fly by Colin Curtis and a single by Rocky Laguna. However, pinch runner Jeff Landry was tagged out in a rundown after Laguna