TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — LSU launched a season high four home runs, including two from Clay Harris, and pounded out 17 hits, but had to hold off a frantic ninth-inning rally by Alabama for an 11-10 victory on Sunday at Sewell-Thomas Stadium, giving the Fighting Tigers their seventh consecutive Southeastern Conference series victory.
LSU (18-9-1, 7-1-1) has not lost a league series since dropping two of three last April at South Carolina. The Gamecocks, the 2002 SEC champion and national runner-up, visit Alex Box Stadium next weekend for a three-game set.
Combined with Auburn’s 7-6 loss at Georgia, the Tigers moved into second place in the SEC, one-half game behind Mississippi St., which completed a three-game sweep of archrival Ole Miss to go to 8-1 in conference play.
LSU (No. 12 Collegiate Baseball, No. 13 Baseball America, No. 18 ESPN/USA Today), which went 12-3-1 in March after a 6-5 February, will play eight of its next nine games in Baton Rouge, starting with a 6:30 p.m. contest on Wednesday against Nicholls St.
LSU reliever Billy Sadler retired the Alabama leadoff batter, Bobby Burns, in the ninth, but then walked Travis Garner and yielded back-to-back singles to Allen Rice and Adam Pavkovich to load the bases.
Beau Hearod hit a ground ball to first base that appeared to be a routine play for Harris, but he let the ball go under his glove, scoring both Garner and Rice to cut the LSU lead to 11-8.
With Nathan Meiners at the plate, Matt Liuzza let a Sadler pitch hit off of his glove to score Pavkovich and cut the lead to 11-9. Meiners walked to load the bases and chase Sadler from the game.
Justin Meier came in for Sadler and plunked Al Hecklinski to score Hearod and cut the Tiger lead to 11-10. Meier fanned Grant Redding on three consecutive pitches and got Burns to foul out to Liuzza to end the game and notch his first save.
LSU broke a 2-2 tie in the fourth when Harris, the Tigers’ leading hitter on the season at .417, led off with a home run off of Alabama starter Allen Ponder (2-2), then put the game out of reach with back-to-back four run innings in the fifth and sixth.
Aaron Hill led off the fifth with a single, and then was followed by Ivan Naccarata’s two-run home run, his second in as many games, extending LSU’s lead to 5-2 and driving Ponder from the game. Two batters later, Harris greeted Tide reliever Brian Reed with a towering blast well beyond the left field fence for his second home run of the game and a 6-2 Tiger lead.
Harris became the first LSU player this year to hit two home runs in a game. The sophomore first baseman from Slidell was also the only Tiger to hit two home runs in a game in 2002, doing so last March 10 against Louisiana-Monroe.
Reed gave up three consecutive singles following the home run by Harris, as Liuzza’s single scored Ryan Patterson and extending his hitting streak to nine consecutive games.
LSU scored all of its runs in the sixth with two out. Naccarata and Harris had singles and were on second and third when Patterson grounded a single past Reed and into center field to extend LSU’s lead to 9-2, and then Jon Zeringue hit his fourth home run in as many games and fifth in the Tigers’ last six outings to score Patterson ahead of him and send much of the announced crowd of 6,013 heading for the exits.
Blake Gill gave LSU an early lead in the first with a two-run double to left field. Alabama (20-7, 5-4) cut the Tiger lead to 2-1 in the bottom of the first with the help of three wild pitches by Tiger starter Nate Busmtead, with the third scoring Rice. The Tide tied the game in the third on Adam Pavkovich’s sacrifice fly that scored Garner, who led off with a double.
LSU (18-9-1, 7-1-1) 200 144 000– 11 17 2
Alabama (20-7, 5-4) 101 000 404– 10 10 0
Nate Bumstead, Jason Determann (8), Billy Sadler (9), Justin Meier (9) and Matt Liuzza; Allen Ponder and Bobby Burns.
WP–Bumstead, 3-1.
LP– Ponder, 2-2.
S–Meier (1).
2B–LSU: Blake Gill (4), Ryan Patterson (7); Alabama: Travis Garner 2 (5).
HR–LSU: Clay Harris 2 (5), Ivan Naccarata (4), Jon Zeringue (6); Alabama: Beau Hearod (7).
T–2:51.
A–6,013.