BATON ROUGE — Cedrick Harris hit the Tigers’ first home run in 169 at bats and drove in four runs, as the LSU baseball team broke a five-game losing streak by beating Nicholls State, 8-2, Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU starter Trey Hodges picked up his first win of the season in his first start. He gave up one run on five hits while striking out seven in five innings. The Tigers’ relief pitching — Hunter Gomez, Heath McMurray and Tim Nugent — also came up big, only allowing one run on three hits while walking one and striking out five in four innings.
LSU improved to 7-5 on the season, while Nicholls State fell to 3-10.
For the Colonels, starter Zach Murray got the loss and fell to 0-2 on the season.
For the first time in eight games, LSU took the lead by putting a run on the board in both the first and second innings. Mike Fontenot was hit by pitch, advanced to second on a ground ball by Jeremy Witten, stole third and then scored on a ground ball by Brad Hawpe.
In the second, Ryan Theriot earned a two-out walk and then scored on a double by Cedrick Harris to make the score 2-0.
Nicholls State manufactured a run in the top of the third when shortstop Shane Landry doubled off the left field wall to lead off the inning and was then sacrificed to third by center fielder Kevin Larpenter. Second baseman Rondon Anderson hit a sacrifice fly to center to drive in Landry and cut the lead to 2-1.
LSU earned three more runs in the fourth inning off of Nicholls’ starter Zach Murray when Johnnie Thibodeaux has hit by a pitch and advanced on a balk. Theriot once again earned a walk before Harris cleared the bases with a home run that barely missed the left field foul pole, giving LSU a 5-1 lead.
The home run by Harris was the Tigers’ first in 169 at bats.
The Tigers would put runners on second and third with two outs in the innings before Cresse flew out to center to end the inning.
Hunter Gomez entered the game in relief of Hodges in the sixth and quickly loaded the bases with no outs. After Skip Bertman visited the mound, Gomez allowed a sacrifice fly to R.J. Elbin before striking out the last two batters to end the inning and keep the score 6-2.
Witten was hit by pitch and Hawpe walked to open the bottom of the sixth. Cresse then hit an RBI double to right, scoring Witten. Blair Barbier singled to drive in Hawpe and give LSU an 8-2 lead.
Heath McMurray made his third appearance of the year in relief of Gomez to start the seventh, and he put the Colonels down in order. In the eighth, he allowed a two-out walk before retiring the side with his second strikeout of the game.
All three Tigers who were hit by pitches scored for the Tigers.