BATON ROUGE — Justin Meier allowed one run over five innings to win his second consecutive start, and LSU collected five extra base as the Fighting Tigers broke a three-game losing streak with a 9-4 victory over Louisiana-Monroe on Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU (5-3), which was swept last weekend by Kansas, averted its longest home losing streak since dropping five in a row from February 20-27, 2000. The victory was LSUs sixth in a row over UL-Monroe (5-2), the school that current Tiger coach Smoke Laval led to three NCAA regional berths in seven seasons from 1994 through 2000.
LSU (No. 12 Collegiate Baseball, No. 14 Baseball America, No. 17 ESPN/USA Today) faces its first ranked opponent of 2003 when it welcomes the Houston Cougars (2-5) to Baton Rouge for a three-game series that begins Friday at 6:30 p.m.
The Cougars (No. 20 Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball, No. 21 ESPN/USA Today), who took two of three from the Tigers last year in Houston, dropped a 3-0 decision to Rice on Tuesday at home.
Meier, who threw five shutout innings in his LSU debut last Tuesday at Centenary, allowed three hits and struck out three to go to 2-0. He gave up his first run of the season on a leadoff home run by Joey Wolfe.
UL-Monroe looked ready to grab the early lead when Willie Rickard led off the game with a double and went to third on Mario Filippis sacrifice bunt. But Meier worked his way out of the jam by getting Ben Jones to fly to right and striking out Jerad Doty to end the inning.
LSU finally got going in the third, as one-out walks to Matt Horwath and Matt Liuzza and a wild pitch put runners on second and third. J.C. Holts ground ball to second scored Horwath with the games first run, and Quinn Stewart followed with his second home run of the season to extend the Tiger pad to 3-0.
The Tigers responded to Wolfes home run immediately by adding three runs in the bottom of the fifth. Indian reliever Michael Durham walked Horwath and Holt and yielded a single to Liuzza to load the bases, then uncorked a wild pitch to score Horwath for a 4-1 LSU lead.
Stewart was retired on a ground ball, but Durham re-loaded the bases by hitting Aaron Hill on the left hand with a pitch. Blake Gill hit into a force play at the plate for the second out, but Jon Zeringue laced a double to left field to score Holt and Hill for a 6-1 advantage.
Billy Sadler reliever Meier for the sixth inning, and gave up a leadoff single to Rickard before hitting both Ben Jones and Wolfe to load the bases with two out. Jack Skaggs drew a bases-loaded walk to score Rickard for the first run of the inning, and then Kade Eady lifted a sinking fly ball to right field that hit the webbing of Zeringues glove in right field and bounced out, allowing two more runs to score on the error. Sadler ended the threat by retiring Al Hayward on a ground ball to shortstop Horwath.
Nate Bumstead relieved Sadler and pitched two scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth, and the Tigers scored three insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth to put the game out of reach. Ivan Naccarata tripled home Ryan Patterson, who doubled one batter before him, and Naccarata scored on Horwaths sacrifice fly before Holt doubled to left.
Louisiana-Monroe (5-2) 000 013 000– 4 5 0
LSU (5-3) 003 030 03x– 9 7 1
Ryan Schwabe, Michael Durham (5), Brian Shoup (5), Brennan Courville (9) and Joey Wolfe; Justin Meier, Billy Sadler (6), Nate Bumstead (7), Brandon Nall (9) and Matt Liuzza, Shawn French (9).
WP–Meier, 2-1.
LP–Schwabe, 1-1.
2B–ULM: Willie Rickard (1); LSU: Jon Zeringue (2), Ryan Patterson (2), J.C. Holt (2).
3B–LSU: Ivan Naccarata (1).
HR–ULM: Joey Wolfe (1); LSU: Quinn Stewart (2).
T–2:44.
A–7,201 (paid); 2,597 (actual).