BATON ROUGE — Aaron Hill went 3-for-5 with two doubles, while Jon Zeringue was 2-for-4 with a two-run double and a two-run home run as LSU scored nine runs over the final four innings to power past Ole Miss, 14-6 on Saturday at Alex Box Stadium, drawing the Fighting Tigers even with the Rebels in the three-game Southeastern Conference series.
LSU (23-11-1, 10-3-1) can win its ninth consecutive conference series by taking Sunday’s 1 p.m. rubber match. Ole Miss (21-13, 8-6) will be looking to win its first series in Baton Rouge since 1982.
Sunday’s game wIll be televised throughout Louisiana on the Louisiana Sports Network and can be seen in other SEC markets on Comcast Sports Southeast.
LSU (No. 8 Collegiate Baseball, No. 11 Baseball America, No. 13 ESPN/USA Today) has played rubber matches in each of its last two series, defeating Alabama and South Carolina.
Hill, the Tigers’ leading hitter at .373 on the season, has three or more hits in four of his last five games and four three-hit games this season. In LSU’s 14 SEC games, Hill is batting .444 with eight doubles and 14 RBI.
Another key factor contributing to the Tiger rally was the pitching of starter Bo Pettit following a third inning home run by Charlie Waite that gave Ole Miss a 6-5 lead. Following the home run, Pettit retired the next 14 batters he faced in order, keeping the Rebels at bay and
Pettit improved to a team best 6-1 on the year, and for the ninth time in his career, won a game immediately following an LSU loss.
LSU trailed 6-5 through two and a half innings, a score that held up until the Tigers took a 7-6 lead in the bottom of the fifth on a two-out, two-run double by Zeringue that stayed just inside the third base bag and rolled into the left field corner.
LSU started the seventh with a single by Bruce Sprowl and a bunt single by J.C. Holt that drvoe Ole Miss reliever Anthony Cupps from the game. Cupps came into the game as the SEC’s leader in ERA at 1.01, but he gave up four runs on five hits in four-plus innings to suffer his first loss of the season.
Jeremy Zick relieved Cupps and walked Hill to load the bases, and afer Ivan Naccarata popped out to short left field, Sprowl scored on Blake Gill’s fielder’s choice ground ball, and Holt would come home when Chad Sterbens’ relay throw on the double play attempt went wide of first base.
The error helped LSU score another run on Ryan Patterson’s RBI single to extend the Tigers’ lead to 10-6.
Down 11-6 with two out in the eighth, Ole Miss loaded the bases on Pettit on a pair of walks and a Waite single. But the Rebels would leave the bases loaded when LSU reliever Billy Sadler induced Bryce Morrison to pop up to Hill on a full count pitch to end the inning.
Zeringue capped scoring for LSU with his team leading eighth home run, which followed Gill’s leadoff home run to start the bottom of the eighth.
A leadoff double by Jon Swearingen in the top of the first would turn into the game’s first run two batters later when Seth Smith lifted a sacrifice fly to medium-deep right field. Swearingen just slid under the tag of LSU catcher Matt Liuzza to give Ole Miss a 1-0 lead.
LSU responded with three runs of its own in the bottom of the first to grab the lead. Hill tied the game with a one-out double into the left center field gap to score Sprowl, who drew a leadoff walk from Ole Miss starter Mark Holliman.
Holliman then hit Ivan Naccarata before yielding back-to-back RBI singles to Gill and Clay Harris. The Tigers, however, missed a chance to take an even larger lead when Patterson grounded into an inning ending double play.
The seesaw nature of the early innings continued in the top of the second when Stephen Head and Charlie Waite led off with back-to-back singles. Following Barry Gunhter’s sacrifice bunt, Pettit struck out Morrison for the second out but couldn’t close the inning out, giving up an RBI single to Justin Donovan and hitting Swearingen, leading to Sterbens’ two-run single that put Ole Miss back in front at 4-3.
Holliman would last just two batters into the second, as he hit Zeringue and gave up a single to Liuzza before giving way to Cupps. Holliman, who entered with the lowest ERA among Ole Miss starters at 2.03, gave up five runs on four hits in just over one inning.
Cupps walked J.C. Holt with one out to load the bases, and after Hill lined out to second base, Naccarata punched a two-run single into center field that allowed LSU to regain a 5-4 lead, only to have that edge evaporate in the third on Waite’s home run.
Ole Miss (21-13, 8-6) 132 000 000– 6 8 2
LSU (23-11-1, 10-3-1) 320 023 13x– 14 16 0
Mark Holliman, Anthony Cupps (2), Jeremy Zick (6), Nick Bradshaw (7) and Charlie Waite; Bo Pettit, Billy Sadler (8) and Matt Liuzza.
WP–Pettit, 6-1.
LP–Cupps, 3-1.
S–Sadler (1).
2B–Ole Miss: Jon Swearingen (3); LSU: Aaron Hill 2 (13), Jon Zeringue (7). Ryan Patterson (9).
HR–Ole Miss: Charlie Waite (2); LSU: Blake Gill (3), Jon Zeringue (8).
T–2:57.
A–7,810 (paid); 4,374 (actual).