MONROE, La. — Todd Linden drove in five runs and LSU pounded out 14 hits as the Tigers (#3 Collegiate Baseball, #5 Baseball America and Baseball Weekly) pounded Louisiana-Monroe, 16-4, Thursday night at Indian Field in front of a record crowd of 4,637.
The game was called after eight innings by the 10-run rule by mutual agreement between coaches Skip Bertman of LSU and Brad Holland of ULM. The Indians (29-17, who play Northwestern State in a key Southland Conference series starting Friday, were playing the third game of a nine-game, nine-day stretch and were short on pitching.
The Tigers (32-13-1, 14-7 Southeastern Conference), who began an eight-game road trip with a victory, departed immediately after the game for Tuscaloosa, where they begin a three-game series with SEC rival Alabama (26-19, 10-11) Friday at 7 p.m. The Tigers are tied for the overall SEC lead with Ole Miss and Mississippi State, who are at Vanderbilt and Florida, respectively, this weekend.
Lidnen, a junior outfielder from Bremerton, Wash., got his first two RBIs without the benefit of a hit, as he grounded to short in the first and walked with the bases loaded in the fourth. Then with two runners on in the fifth, he launched a three-run homer to cap a six-run fifth inning and put the Tigers ahead, 12-4.
The other big story of this game was the impressive relief pitching of freshman Brian Wilson. The New Hampshire native came into the game in the third inning with the score tied at 4-4 and held ULM at bay, pitching three shutout innings and allowing just one hit and no walks in improving to 2-2 on the year. Billy Brian added two scoreless innings, while Chad Vaught pitched a scoreless eighth to close the game in his first career appearance on the mound for the Tigers.
Ryan Theriot walked to open the game, and after a single by Mike Fontenot moved him to third, Wally Pontiff’s sacrifice fly to the warning track in center scored the game’s first run.
Theriot would single home Sean Barker in the second to make it 3-0 before the LSU shortstop came home himself when Scott Cadwallader dropped Fontenot’s fly ball that would have ended the inning.
Jaime Estrada’s two-run single in the second finally got ULM on the board in the bottom of the second, then the Indians tied the game in the third with back-to-back home runs by Willie Core and Jesse Hooerlbeke. Core’s homer extended his hitting streak to 31 games.
But the tie wasn’t to last. Johnnie Thibodeaux started the LSU fourth with a double, and after an Aaron Hill single and a throwing error by Toby Childers moved Hill to second and Thibodeaux to third, Theriot’s ground ball scored Thibodeaux. Another Indian error, this one by Matt Benson, allowed Theriot to reach safely on the play, and the error proved costly when Linden walked with the bases loaded.
Matt Heath led off the LSU fifth with a triple, but it appeared the runner would be stranded when both Ray Wright and Zeph Zinsman took called third strikes. But David Raymer walked, and Theriot was then hit to load the bases, setting up Fontenot for a two-run single to push LSU further ahead, 8-4. Pontiff then came through with an RBI single before Linden hit his team-leading 14th home run of the season to put the game on ice.
Raymer would double home another run in the eighth before scoring himself on a wild pitch after Victor Brumfield’s sacrifice fly scored Zinsman, who hit his 10th home run of the year in the sixth.