BATON ROUGE — The LSU-Southern baseball game on Tuesday night at Southern’s Lee-Hines Field was rained out in the middle of the fifth inning with the Fighting Tigers holding a 3-2 lead.
Since the Jaguars did not get their opportunity to bat in the bottom of the fifth inning, the game was not official, and records from the contest are voided.
The game will likely be made up a later date this season.
LSU (13-7-1) took a 3-2 lead in the top of the fifth when Aaron Hill led off with a triple and scored two batters later on Blake Gill’s sacrifice fly.
But it began to rain shortly after Hill scored, and by time the inning ended, a severe thunderstorm had moved over the area. After a failed attempt to put the tarp on the field, the game was called at 8:30 p.m., just 12 minutes after the game was suspended.
LSU wasted little time in taking an early lead, jumping on Southern starting pitcher Antwayna Beasley for two runs in the top of the first.
J.C. Holt grounded a one-out single back through the middle, and then Aaron Hill walked to bring up LSU’s leading hitter, Ivan Naccarata. Naccarta laced a shot down the left field line that allowed Holt and Hill to score easily.
The Tigers had a chance to extend the lead further in the inning with runners on the corners with two out, but Quinn Stewart flied out to center field to allow the Jaguars to escape without further damage.
Southern (17-4) scored its two runs in the fourth inning, taking advantage of a Hill error to score first on a wild pitch by Nate Bumstead, then on an RBI single by Fernando Puebla.
Bumstead struck out seven batters over four innings, which would have been a season high had the game become official.
LSU takes its 2-0-1 record in Southeastern Conference play to Athens, Ga., on Friday when the Tigers open a three-game series against the Georgia Bulldogs at 7 p.m. ET. The series continues with games on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET and Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.