BATON ROUGE — Wally Pontiff, Jason Vargas and David Raymer each smacked home runs to support the strong pitching of Lane Mestepey as LSU (9-4) bounced back to earn a doubleheader split with Long Beach State (7-5) with a 10-2 victory in the nightcap on Saturday night at Alex Box Stadium.
The 49ers pounded three Fighting Tiger pitchers for 12 hits as Long Beach took an 8-3 victory in the opener.
Pontiff, the Tigers’ junior third baseman and team captain, gave LSU its first lead of the day at 1-0 when he hit a fastball from Daniel Eisentrager over the scoreboard in right-center field for his second home run of the year. It marked the first run that Eisentrager (3-1) had allowed in 12 2/3 innings.
LSU (No. 7 ESPN/Baseball Weekly, No. 8 Collegiate Baseball, No. 9 Baseball America) soon had a 3-0 lead in the second on a two-run double by Chris Phillips that scored Matt Heath and Blake Gill, who had both singled earlier in the inning.
The 49ers (No. 21 Collegiate Baseball, No. 24 ESPN/Baseball Weekly) scored their only run in the fourth as Nick Covarubbias led off with a double and came home two batters later on Todd Jennings’ RBI single off of Mestepey’s glove.
LSU would put the game away with three runs in the fifth, as Raymer led off and reached on an error by Nick Orlandos, before scoring on a balk by Eisentrager. Vargas would hit his second home run of the season with two out off of the billboard in right field to make it 6-1.
Mestepey, who pitched a complete game last week at Houston, scattered five hits and walked none while striking out eight over eight innings to improve to 2-0 on the year.
Raymer closed scoring with a solo home run in the eighth, marking LSU’s first three-home run game of the season.
The 49ers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third of the opener when Kevin Randel hit his first home run of the season over the scoreboard.
LSU would score in the bottom of the same inning by loading the bases with hits by Rocky Scelfo and Aaron Hill, along with a walk to Pontiff, loaded the bases before Scelfo scored on Sean Barker’s ground ball to third.
Paul Maclauso led off the Long Beach fifth with a single, then went to second on a balk by Bo Pettit before scoring the go-ahead run two batters later on Orlandos’ hit. A throwing error by Hill on Jeremy Reed’s ground ball and an intentional walk to Chris Wright loaded the bases, with another walk to Paul McAnulty scoring Orlandos for a 3-1 lead.
Hill, who was playing in his first game in two weeks after suffering a separated shoulder on February 16, aggravated his injury on the throwing error and had to come out of the game.
Orlandos’ first of two doubles on the game scored Randel in the sixth for a 4-1 49er lead, then Long Beach got two more in the seventh on a Chris Phillips throwing error that scored Nick Covarrubias and on a Todd Jennings sacrifice fly that plated McAnulty.
The runs would be enough for Long Beach pitcher Abe Alvarez, as the sophomore left-hander struck out five over 6 2/3 innings to improve to 3-0 on the season.
LSU had a chance to pull closer in the seventh, as RBI singles by Phillips and Pontiff got the Tigers to within 6-3, but Barker grounded out to short to end the threat with runners on second and third.
The doubleheader was notable for a sharp temperature drop between games. The first game began under cloudy and muggy conditions with temperatures near 70 degrees, but by the end of the second game, temperatures had dipped to the 40s with northwest winds of 15 to 20 MPH.