BATON ROUGE — UL-Monroe pitchers retired 23 LSU batters without a single Fighting Tiger runner reaching third base, but thanks to triples by Blake Gill and Dustin Hahn, the Tigers tallied four times in the eighth inning to rally for a 4-3 victory over the Indians Friday night at Alex Box Stadium.
The game marked the first meeting between the Tigers and the Indians since former ULM coach Smoke Laval took over the LSU program for the retired Skip Bertman. Laval was 3-8 against LSU as the Indians’ skipper.
LSU (11-5) will go for the series win Saturday at 2 p.m. and will send ace left-hander Lane Mestepey (2-0, 3.25) to the mound, while the Indians (5-9) will counter with ace right-hander Caleb McConnell (1-1, 2.59).
The Indians were carried through the first 7 1/3 innings of the game by Baton Rouge native Justin Lobello, who entered the game 0-3 with a 6.35 ERA, but scattered five hits and struck out six in his stint, helping lower his ERA to 4.81.
Lobello got J.C. Holt to ground out to start the eighth inning, but he gave up an infield hit to Wally Pontiff and gave way to left-handed reliever Lee Graves, who struck out Jason Vargas.
Graves was relieved by right-hander Bobby Carro, who gave up a single to Sean Barker then faced the left-handed hitting Gill. Gill drove a towering fly ball to right center field that hit the top of the fence, and Gill would reach third standing up after Pontiff and Barker had scored, brining an otherwise listless Tiger crowd to its feet as LSU cut the Indian lead to 3-2.
With Matt Heath at the plate, Carro uncorked a wild pitch to score Gill with the tying run before walking Heath. Hahn then drove the first pitch from Carro inside the first-base line into the right field corner, allowing Heath to easily score the winning run.
ULM would get the tying run on in the ninth when Tiger closer Brian Wilson hit Ben Jones, but he settled down to retire the final two batters for his first save as reliever Brad David earned his first win of the year.
Joey Wolfe led off the second inning with a home run to right field, and ULM threatened to get more in the inning as Jack Skaggs singled and Willie Rickard doubled to put two runners in scoring position, but Jaime Estrada took a called third strike to end the inning.
But Tiger hurler Bo Petitt would find himself in trouble quickly in the third, walking Jay Aulds, a .130 hitter entering the game, then giving up a base hit to Jason Lind before Ted White’s sacrifice put both runners in scoring position.
Wolfe then came through with a base hit past Tiger shortstop Holt to plate Aulds for a 2-0 lead, and although Pettit would strike out Kade Eady for the second out, he was soon behind 3-0 when Skaggs singled to right.
Following Skaggs’ second hit, of the game, Pettit would retire 11 of the next 13 batters he would face, but thanks to an anemic LSU offense that could not get a runner to third base prior to Gill’s triple, Pettit was threatened with a third consecutive loss before getting bailed out. The Houston native ended with 10 strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings, his second double-figure strikeout game of the year.