BATON ROUGE — LSU used an eight-run sixth inning and to knock off Southern University, 10-5, Wednesday night in Alex Box Stadium.
LSU starter Billy Brian earned the win for the Tigers after going five innings and allowing no hits while striking out eight and walking three. Brian improved to 4-2 on the season.
Gabe Ashford, the Southern starter, received the loss after pitching 5 1/3 innings, giving up seven earned runs on nine hits, walking five and striking out four. He fell to 3-1 on the season.
LSU returns to action this weekend for a three-game home series against Arkansas beginning Friday at 7 p.m. and continuing Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at noon.
Southern got on the scoreboard first with a run in the top of the third when Randy Jones walked and LSU committed a pair of errors trying to pick him off. He would score on a wild pitch by Brian.
LSU (23-10) answered with a run of its own in the bottom of the third, but left the bases loaded to end the inning. After Fontenot walked to open the inning, Cresse singled to move Fontenot to second. The Tiger second baseman would score on a double by Brad Hawpe, tying the score at 1-1.
The Tigers picked up another run in the fourth on a homer by Cresse off the “Intimidator” in right field, giving LSU a 2-1 lead.
Although Brian had not allowed a hit through five innings, he was lifted in favor of Trey Hodges to begin the sixth inning. With two outs in the sixth, Hodges gave up Southern’s first hit of the game, a double by Franco Blackburn to deep left field over the head of Wally Pontiff.
In the bottom of the sixth, Jeremy Witten reached on a single and once again stole second. He would then come around to score on Ray Wright’s single up the middle to increase LSU’s lead to 3-1. After Wright stole second, Victor Brumfield singled past the shortstop to put runners on the corners with only one out. Fontenot would then knock in Wright with a Texas Leaguer to center and Cresse would walk to load the bases for Hawpe and drive Ashford from the game.
Hawpe hit the first offering from Shelton into left center field to drive in two runs and give LSU a 6-1 lead. After Blair Barbier reached base for the first time with a walk, Dave Foreman entered in relief of Shelton. Pinch hitter Johnnie Thibodeaux hit a sacrifice fly to deep center, scoring Cresse. On an infield pop up that turned into an error by the Southern catcher, Hawpe came up limping after sliding into third. Mike Daly made his first appearance of the season on the base path as a pinch runner.
LSU picked up two more runs on a two-out single by Wright, increasing the lead to 10-1 after the eight-run inning.
Southern scored a run in the eighth and three in the ninth to close the gap to 10-5. Weylin Guidry allowed three runs on three hits in the ninth.