BATON ROUGE — Clay Harris’ second home run of the game broke a tie in the seventh inning, but LSU had to survive some very anxious moments in the ninth innings as the Fighting Tigers (13-5) held off Louisiana-Monroe (5-11), 8-7 Sunday at Alex Box Stadium, giving LSU its third three-game sweep of the season.
LSU (No. 6 Baseball America and ESPN/Baseball Weekly, No. 8 Collegiate Baseball) will play its final game before opening Southeastern Conference play next weekend when the Tigers host Louisiana-Lafayette Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. LSU welcomes Vanderbilt to Baton Rouge next weekend for the first of 10 three-game weekend series in SEC play.
Wally Pontiff drew a leadoff walk to start the seventh, and ULM coach Brad Holland chose to replace left-handed pitcher Lee Graves with right-hander Mike Lovelace to face the right-handed hitting Harris.
But the Slidell native made sure the move backfired by hitting a 1-2 offering into the left field bleachers to break a 5-5 tie. Harris is the first Tiger to hit two home runs in a game this season, as the last player to do so was former LSU outfielder Todd Linden, who hit two in last year’s regional final against VCU.
Harris narrowly missed a third home run as he flied to the wall in left-center in the eighth.
ULM began to tee off of Tiger closer Brian Wilson in the ninth, as back-to-back doubles by Jerad Doty and Jaime Estrada cut the LSU lead to 8-6, and after Wilson got Ted White for the first out, Kade Eady hit into a fielder’s choice to score Estrada to score another run. Wilson got the final out by getting Joey Wolfe to pop up the shortstop, although J.C. Holt nearly dropped the ball.
ULM got out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning with a little help from the Tigers. LSU starting pitcher Lukas Guidroz struck out White, the game’s second batter, but White reached safely when the third strike bounced in the dirt and went to the backstop.
Guidroz fanned Jason Lind for the second out, but he gave up a single to Eady before Wolfe lined a double inside the left-field line to score White and Eady for a 2-0 lead.
LSU had another chance to get out of the inning when it appeared that Blake Gill made a good throw from the hole to get Jack Skaggs, but Jason Columbus could not scoop the ball properly, allowing Wolfe to score from second.
Columbus’ double in the second scored Matt Heath with LSU’s first run of the game, and Columbus would score on Holt’s single later in the inning to cut the Indian lead to 3-2.
LSU would take its first lead of the game in the third as Harris hit a towering drive just inside the left-field fair pole for his first homer of the game and second of the year.
That lead wouldn’t last, as ULM reclaimed the lead in the fifth. Estrada scored the tying run when he alertly raced home with White caught in a rundown, then Eady doubled home Lind for a 5-4 lead for the visitors.
Pontiff walked three times and grounded into a double play in his first four plate appearances, but laced an RBI double in the eighth for an insurance run. Pontiff got the extra at-bat when Indian shortstop Andy Chance threw into the LSU dugout on David Raymer’s ground ball. Pontiff is now hitting .553 (21-for-38) with 10 RBI during the streak.