LONG BEACH, Calif. — The LSU baseball program explores a new frontier this weekend when the Fighting Tigers visit the Long Beach State 49ers in a three-game weekend series at Blair Field, marking LSU’s first visit to California in the program’s 110-year history.
The series gets underway on Friday at 6:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. CST), and continues with single games on Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. PST (3 p.m. CST) each day. The games on Friday and Sunday will be broadcast on the full LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge), while a conflict with the LSU-Tennessee men’s basketball game on Saturday will limit radio to the Baton Rouge area only (WJNH-107.3 FM).
Audio and live statistics for all three games will be available on the Internet at www.lsusports.net.
The games on Saturday and Sunday will be televised by Jumbo Sports Network throughout Louisiana and by Comcast Sports Southeast in other SEC markets, marking the first of at least 24 regular season television appearances for the Tigers this season. Saturday’s game will be televised in Baton Rouge on WGMB-Fox 44 (cable channel 6) and Sunday’s contest will be on WBBM-WB 21 (cable channel 10).
LSU (6-4) will be facing a ranked foe for the second consecutive weekend, as the Tigers (No. 13 Baseball America, No. 14 Collegiate Baseball, No. 21 ESPN/USA Today) split two games with Houston last weekend in Baton Rouge.
The Tigers’ pitching rotation will see the addition of fifth-year senior right-hander Bo Pettit, who is scheduled to start Sunday’s game. Pettit, who missed scheduled starts against Northwestern State and Kansas in the season’s first two weekends because of the flu, had his scheduled start in the Houston series wiped out when rain reduced the series from three games to two.
Pettit, who was 9-7 with a 3.35 ERA in 2002, pitched the final two innings of last Sunday’s game with Houston to earn his first career save.
The Tigers’ other starters for the weekend remain the same as they have been the first three weekends, with senior right-hander Jake Tompkins (0-1, 5.00) scheduled to start on Friday and junior right-hander Brian Wilson (2-1, 4.08) set to go on Saturday.
At the plate, LSU’s most consistent hitter in recent games has been junior infielder Ivan Naccarata, who enters the weekend series on a seven-game hitting streak and has raised his average for the year to .303. Naccarata is also tied for the team lead in RBI with eight.
Long Beach St. (8-4) has taken on one of the nation’s more challenging schedules to this point, starting the season by facing traditional Pacific-10 Conference powers Arizona State and Stanford in the first two weekends. The 49ers (No. 9 Collegiate Baseball, No. 11 Baseball America and ESPN/USA Today) have won five of their last six games, all at home, sweeping Washington State and winning two of three over California last weekend.
The 49ers will make weekend road trips to Baylor and Wichita State following the LSU series before jumping into Big West Conference play in late March.
Long Beach coach Mike Weathers will send one of the nation’s top pitchers to the mound on Friday in junior left-hander Abe Alvarez (4-0, 1.23). Alvarez won the series opener for the 49ers last year in Baton Rouge, giving up three runs in 6 1/3 innings in an 8-3 victory. Saturday’s starter will be sophomore right-hander Jered Weaver (2-2, 1.80), who, like Alvarez, is a pre-season All-America. Weaver pitched five innings in a no decision in last year’s series finale.
Alvarez and Weaver anchor a 49ers pitching staff that enters the series with an ERA of 2.69.
At the plate, Long Beach is hitting .275 overall with just two home runs in 12 games. The 49ers’ top hitter is senior infielder Tim Hutting, who is batting .340 and has hit safely in all 12 49er games this season.
LSU leads the all-time series with Long Beach, 6-2, with all prior meetings taking place at one of two sites — Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge or Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the College World Series.
Last year marked the first regular season series between the Tigers and the 49ers, with LSU taking two of three at home. Long Beach won the opener, 8-3, before LSU came back to take 10-2 and 5-4 victories in the series’ final two contests. The series finale was an 11-inning affair that ended on Matt Heath’s one-out solo home run in a game that was the coldest recorded game in LSU baseball history, with a temperature of 31 degrees and a wind chill of 18 at the first pitch.
LSU also defeated Long Beach in the 1997 South I Regional, winning 14-7 in 11 innings in a game in which LSU coach Skip Bertman was ejected for arguing a balk in the eighth inning.
The teams first met at the 1989 College World Series, with LSU winning an elimination game, 8-5. There would be three meetings at the 1993 CWS, with the Tigers winning the first meeting, 7-1, the 49ers bouncing back for a 10-8 victory, and LSU winning the bracket final, 6-5, with a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth inning.
LSU has played baseball games west of the Rocky Mountains only twice prior to this weekend, winning two of three at Nevada-Las Vegas in 1991 and going 2-0-1 at Arizona State in 2001.
LSU returns home on Wednesday to face Southeastern Louisiana before hosting Winthrop in a three-game series next weekend.