BATON ROUGE, La. — For the first time in four games, LSU had a lead. But they couldn’t hold it, as Houston exploded for seven runs in the seventh and eighth innings for an 11-7 victory over the Tigers at Alex Box Stadium.
The 10th-ranked Cougars (10-3) go for the three-game sweep of the second-ranked Tigers (6-4) Sunday at 1 p.m.
LSU has not been swept in a three-game non-conference series since 1988 against Wichita State, and hasn’t been swept at home since losing three to Auburn that same year.
Trailing 6-4 going into the seventh, the Cougars got two runners on with one out on singles by Jason Pekar and Eric Lee. Reliever Tim Nugent got J.P. Woodward to pop up, but Nugent was replaced immediately by Weylin Guidry, and then it was all downhill for LSU.
Jarrod Bitter greeted Guidry with a double off the center field wall to tie the game, and following a single by Tyson Scweitzer, Kris Wilken hit a three-run homer to left to give the Cougars a 9-6 edge and chase Guidry from the contest.
Houston got a pair of unearned runs in the eighth thanks to a throwing error by Brad Crese that scored Pekar and Blair Barbier’s boot that scored Brandon Caraway.
The Cougars took a 2-0 lead in the first two innings, scoring in the first on Bitter’s double and the second on Aaron Melebeck’s solo home run. But LSU responded, putting up five runs in the third.
Ryan Jorgensen got LSU on the board with an RBI triple to plate Cedrick Harris, then the Tiger catcher scored two batters later on Mike Fontenot’s single. Cresse’s RBI double scored Fontenot and Hawpe to give the Tigers the lead, and Johnnie Thibodeaux’s base hit plated Cresse.
The Tigers took a 6-4 lead in the sixth with the help of a three-base error by Melenbeck, and had a runner on third with noboody out. But reliever Robert Dieudonne got out of the jam by striking out Jorgensen, Jeremy Witten and Barbier.
Dieudonne allowed just one unearned run on two hits in four innings of relief to pick up his first win of the season. Guidry allowed three runs and recorded no outs to take his second loss of the week.