BATON ROUGE — Although the Tigers couldn’t touch McNeese starter Chris Howay through eight innings, it was McNeese’s bullpen that hung on for a 9-8 win in 11 innings Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium.
The Tigers fell to 6-2 after its second consecutive loss. McNeese improved to 8-3.
After LSU scored five runs in the bottom of the ninth against relief pitcher Chet Medlock to send the game to extra frames, McNeese scored four in the top of the 11th to earn the win.
McNeese’s J.J. Korf hit an RBI single in the top of the 11th to give the Cowboys a 6-5 lead before Nolan Parker hit a two-out, three-run home run to left-center field. All four 11th inning runs were unearned after a Ryan Theriot throwing error to start the inning.
In the bottom of the 11th, LSU mounted another comeback against Cowboy reliever Jared Gothreaux. Brad Hawpe led off the inning with a double into the right field corner and Blair Barbier reached first on a throwing error by Korf.
Hawpe scored on double by Harris and then Barbier and Harris scored on a double by Wally Pontiff to make the score 9-8 with no outs.
With Pontiff on second, Jeremy Witten popped out to the catcher in foul territory for the first out. Ray Wright then grounded out to third without advancing Pontiff. Theriot popped out to right with the winning run on second.
Before the ninth-innings comeback, McNeese State starting pitcher Chris Howay shut the third-ranked LSU baseball team down with a eight-inning, six-hit performance to give his team a 5-0 lead.
Howay left the game with no outs in the ninth after giving up a lead off walk to Mike Fontenot, a double to Brad Cresse and a run-scoring single by Barbier.
Medlock gave up the Tigers’ second run in the ninth as Hawpe hit a single to left, driving in Cresse.
After Harris popped out in foul territory, pinch hitter Pontiff singled to center to load the bases.
LSU scored its third run when Witten gounded into a fielder’s choise and beat out a throw at first to aviod the double play. LSU trailed 5-3.
Wright came to the plate with two outs and runners on second and third. After Witten stole second and a wild throw by Cowboy catcher Josh Salow, Barbier scored to make the score 5-4.
Wright then doubled to left-center field to drive in Witten, but he was gunned down by the shortstop trying to leg out a triple again the wishes of third base coach Bill Dailey. The game then went into extra innings.