MONROE, La. — Sean Barker and J.C. Holt ensured a happy homecoming for LSU coach Smoke Laval in his return to Louisiana-Monroe.
Barker set career highs by going 4-for-5 with 5 RBI, and Holt’s three-run home run broke a 2-2 tie and propelled the Fighting Tigers to a 10-3 victory over the Indians Tuesday night in front of an overflow crowd of 4,401 at Indian Field.
LSU (27-15, 9-8 Southeastern Conference) returns to SEC play Friday at 6:30 p.m. in the opening game of a three-game set against archrival Arkansas (23-15, 7-8). The Razorbacks, who lost 3-2 Tuesday at home to Wichita State, swept the Tigers in last year’s three-game series at Fayetteville. The Tigers, however, have won eight consecutive meetings in the series at Alex Box Stadium.
Prior to the game, ULM coach Brad Holland presented Laval with the number 22 jersey he had worn during his seven seasons (1994-2000) as the Indians’ skipper. Under Laval, ULM (known as Northeast Louisiana through the 1999 season) won three Southland Conference championships and reached three NCAA regionals.
LSU got the early lead in the first on Barker’s RBI single that scored Wally Pontiff, who had doubled earlier. But the lead wouldn’t last as the Indians took a 2-1 lead in the second with back-to-back home runs by Joey Wolfe and Jerad Doty off of LSU starter Clay Harris.
Harris would give up a hit to Andy Chance later in the second, but after Chance’s hit, Harris would give up just one run over the final 4 2/3 innings of his seven-inning stint to improve to 3-0 by walking none and striking out three, extending his streak of innings without a walk to 15. Harris had never gone more than 5 1/3 innings in any of his previous 10 appearances on the mound prior to Tuesday.
The Tigers tied the game in the third when Barker doubled home Aaron Hill, who led off with a double of his own. Matt Heath would follow Barker with a walk, but Blake Gill grounded into an inning-ending double play.
Dustin Hahn led off the fourth with a single, and after a pitch hit David Raymer, Chris Phillips moved both runners into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. Holt, making his first start in 10 days, then gave the Tigers a lead they would never relinquish by hitting his third home run of the year to left field.
Holt, a 5-foot-8, 155-pound freshman second baseman, has hit all three of his home runs this year to the opposite field in left. Holt also had a pinch-hit home run on Sunday in the ninth inning at South Carolina in his only at-bat of that series.
The Tigers would score single runs in the fifth and sixth, first on Raymer’s RBI double in the fifth and a single by Barker in the sixth, his third RBI of the game.
Barker would set new career highs in hits and RBI with a two-run single in the seventh, as the Tigers’ senior right fielder broke a 2-for-16 slump and raised his season average by 13 points to .373.
Hill’s second double of the game in the ninth was his third hit of the contest, and four other Tigers collected two hits each as LSU tied its season high in hits with 16.