BATON ROUGE — LSU’s Lane Mestepey avenged last year’s loss to Arkansas in most emphatic fashion, throwing a four-hit shutout as the Fighting Tigers downed the Razorbacks 3-0 in a Southeastern Conference game Friday night at Alex Box Stadium.
Fans who were caught in line at the concession stands or in the restroom missed plenty of action, as the game took all of one hour and 51 minutes, LSU’s first nine-inning game to go less than two hours since a 7-1 victory over Ole Miss on April 18, 1997 took an hour and 59 minutes.
LSU (28-15, 10-8) will go for its seventh victory in its last eight conference games in game two of the series at 4 p.m. Saturday. Arkansas (23-16, 7-9) will be out to break a nine-game losing streak in Baton Rouge that dates back to 1996.
Mestepey, a sophomore left-hander from the Baton Rouge suburb of Zachary, pitched his first career shutout to improve to 20-5 on his career. Mestepey turned in his fourth complete game this year and the eighth of his career in becoming the second LSU pitcher to throw a complete game shutout in 2002, joining Bo Pettit’s four-hitter on March 15 against Vanderbilt
Last year, Mestepey gave up eight runs on 11 hits as the Razorbacks took an 8-1 victory to begin a three-game sweep in Fayetteville. This year, Mestepey walked none and struck out six while throwing 115 pitches, 81 for strikes.
Aaron Hill’s first inning home run just out of the reach of Arkansas left fielder Cliff Crouse would be the only run LSU would score in the first six innings off of Razorback starter Charlie Isaacson, who faced the minimum number of batters from two outs in the first through the sixth.
Arkansas’ best threat came in the fifth, as Nick Pitts lined a one out double to the gap in right-center. Pitts moved to third on Brett Hagedorn’s ground ball, but Pitts was stranded when Scott Hode flied to medium deep right field.
LSU finally added an insurance run in the seventh on a crazy play.
Wally Pontiff, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a leadoff single, tried to score on base hit by Blake Gill, but Crouse’s throw home cut Pontiff down. Matt Heath, who was intentionally walked by Isaacson with one out, appeared to be out at third, but Cody Clark’s throw sailed into left field, allowing Heath to cross.
Hill picked up another RBI in the eighth with a double just inside the right field line. Arkansas would get a runner into scoring position in the ninth, but Ryan Fox grounded out to end the game.