BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU catcher Brad Cresse hit two home runs and drove in five runs to pace the 11th-ranked Tigers past cross-town rival Southern, 7-3, in a Mardi Gras night game at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU (11-6), which is now 34-0 all-time against the Jaguars (8-2), host Meiji University of Japan in an exhibition game Wednesday night at 7 before opening a three-game Southeastern Conference series at home against Georgia on Friday night at 7.
Cresse’s two homers gave him 53 career round-trippers, moving him past Todd Walker into sole possession of third place on the LSU career list, trailing only SEC career leader Eddy Furniss (80) and Trey McClure (59).
LSU took a 2-0 lead in the fourth on Blair Barbier’s RBI double and Ryan Theriot’s triple to left-center that scored Barbier.
The Jaguars cut the lead to 2-1 in the fifth on Mike Woods’ infield single that scored Nikki Moses, but Cresse hit a two-run homer to left center in the bottom of the fifth to push the Tiger cushion to 4-1. Cresse’ three-run blast in the seventh closed scoring.