BATON ROUGE — LSU center fielder J.C. Holt hit a pair of home runs and collected career highs with four hits and five RBI as the Fighting Tigers held off Northeastern 11-8 to win the opening game of the Baton Rouge regional Friday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium.
The Tigers (41-19-1), the No. 1 seed itn eh regional and the No. 2 national seed in the NCAA field of 64, won its 17th consecutive regional opening round game and advances to a 3 p.m. (CDT) game on Saturday against the winner of tonight’s second game between No. 2 seed Tulane (43-17) and No. 3 seed UNC Wilmington (38-21).
Northeastern (27-23), which has not won a NCAA Tournament game since 1974, drops to the loser’s bracket and faces an elimination game on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. (CDT).
Holt, a freshman All-America in 2002 who has been playing only against right-handed pitchers in the second half of this season, became the third LSU player to hit two home runs in a game this year, joining Clay Harris (twice) and Jon Zeringue. Holt had three home runs on the year coming into the game, and his five RBI also set a new career high.
But the Huskies, trailing 11-4 entering the ninth ining, made it interesting against LSU’s bullpen. Northeastern began the inning with three consecutive hits off of reliever Chad Vaught, and then Brad Czarnowski greeted new LSU pitcher Greg Smith with a bases-clearing double to make it 11-7.
Czarnowski went to third on Matt Liuzza’s passed ball and scored on a ground ball out by Tim Bush,
Holt opened scoring with his solo home run in the bottom of the first into the left-field bleachers. The Tigers had two runners on later in the inning, but could get no more.
Northeastern had its first chance to score in the third when Arman Sidhu led off with a double to right-center field, which was followed two batters later with a Chris Emanuele single to put runners on the corners. LSU starter Jake Tompkins worked out of the jam, though by retiring Mike Sternberg on an infield pop-up and striking out Czarnowski to end the inning.
Bush’s leadoff single and a four-pitch walk to Jeff Heriot set the wheels in motion for the Huskies to tie the game, and that came two batters after Heriot’s walk when Omar Pena doubled off of the center field fence. Northeastern had a chance to take the lead with runners on second and third and one out, but Tompkins struck out Sidhu and Matt Morizio to keep the game tied.
LSU took the lead in the bottom of the fourth when Ivan Naccarata, who led off the inning with a base hit to center field, scored on a fielder’s choice ground ball by Liuzza, whose grounder looked like a sure double play that would have ended the inning until Husky shortstop Sidhu was overrun by Jon Zeringue making the tag at second.
The extra out proved costly, as Bruce Sprowl followed Liuzza with a base hit before Holt launched a three-run home run into the left-center field stands to extend the Tiger lead to 5-1.
Holt’s RBI double in the sixth started a five-run uprising, as Aaron Hill followed Holt with a two-run double into the left field corner, and Gill and Naccarata added RBI singles for a 10-1 LSU lead.
Sprowl and Naccarata both went 2-for-4 for the Tigers, while Zeringue was 2-for-5 to pace the 15-hit attack. Clay Harris added his 12th home run of the year in the eighth for LSU’s final run.
Hedrick was removed following Hill’s double, as he gave up eight runs on nine hits in five-plus innings and gave up six walks.
Northeastern scored three runs with two out in the seventh, starting with a home run by Emanuele, and then followed by an RBI double from Czarnowski and a run-scoring single by Tim Bush.
Tompkins (3-5), the Most Outstanding Player of the 2002 Baton Rouge regional, struck out eight and walked only one over seven innings to win his first game since May 6.
Northeastern (27-23) 000 100 304– 8 13 1
LSU (41-19-1) 100 405 01x– 11 15 0
Justin Hedrick, Devin Monds (6) and Matt Morizio; Jake Tompkins, Chad Vaught (8), Greg Smith (9) and Matt Liuzza, Ty Jensen (9).
WP–Tompkins, 3-5.
LP–Hedrick, 7-2.
2B–Northeastern: Arman Sidhu (14), Brad Czarnowski 2 (6), Omar Pena (16); LSU: J.C. Holt (11), Aaron Hill (26).
HR–Northeastern: Chris Emanuele (4); LSU: Holt 2 (5), Clay Harris (12).
T–3:02.
A–7,591 (paid); 6,242 (actual).
2003 NCAA BATON ROUGE REGIONAL
GAME 1: LSU vs. NORTHEASTERN
MAY 30, 2003
LSU QUOTES
Head Coach Smoke Laval
“That was a pretty good baseball team and you can see why they (Northeastern) are representing their conference and are one of the 64 teams. They are pretty good.”
“That’s why in the first game of the tournament, everybody is anxious to get the first hit, get the first out, or hurry up and win the ballgame. You need someone like Jake (Tompkins) to calm everything down and keep us in the ballgame until we could break it open. I figured something like that would happen and that they would make a run late and hopefully we would be up by enough.”
Starting Pitcher Jake Tompkins
“My arm felt pretty good. I felt healthy. I think that I died there a little bit towards the last couple of innings and that’s just because I haven’t thrown in a while, but like coach (Laval) said I think that they (Northeastern) are a much better team than I anticipated. I know as far as I know that they were. They didn’t get cheated on any of their at-bats. They were tough outs and they played hard.”
Center Fielder J.C. Holt
“There’s not really much to say. I had four hits so it was a big day, but I mean I wasn’t expecting two home runs. I thought that maybe I would get a double or two and a bunch of singles, because most people don’t expect that kind of power output from me, but the wind was blowing a little bit and I was able to stay on the ball.”
“I tried to get some good hacks off and just hit the ball well. Today, the only thing that I did differently was that I tried to slow everything down and I kind of walked up to the plate and even after an out or a hit I would go up there and just slow everything up.”
GAME NOTES
- J.C. Holt recorded the first multi home run game of his career and his second four-hit game of the season.
- LSU upped its record to 18-1 in opening round NCAA regional games, losing only to Houston at Austin, Texas, in 1985.
- LSU outfielder Quinn Stewart sprained his left ankle during the pre-game warm-ups. He is day-to-day.
- Jake Tompkins, the Most Outstanding Player of the 2002 Baton Rouge regional, won his third game of the season by hurling seven innings and allowing four earned runs.
NORTHEASTERN QUOTES
Head Coach Neil McPhee
“We thought we hit the ball very well throughout the game and gave ourselves a chance to stay in the ball game late. I thought that the four run inning in the bottom of the fourth when we had a double play ball up the middle and it could have been a difference sometimes in the outcome of the game. You can’t predict that at that time but most of the time your looking for a ball like that to be hit like a dribbler perfectly placed not to get the double play. It would have been better if were hit a little bit hotter because it would have been an easier play for Arman Sidhu but with that being said you can’t pitch behind a team as strong as LSU, that’s obvious and LSU did too much damage with the bat. We were very pleased with the way with hit the ball too.
On J.C. Holt…
“When you play a team like LSU that is strong 1 through 9, we expect 1 through 9 to be able to swing the bat. He had a great day. He went the other way twice, and that’s as good as anybody we’ve seen.”
On Jake Tompkins…
“The strikeouts he had were on his breaking ball. We had a number of players swinging at the breaking ball in the dirt. And, he turned it up a notch in situations early in the game when we had a few base runners. Tough competitor, I think we were successful to a degree, we got a number of hits, but he was very effective when he had to be.”
Pitcher Justin Hedrick
“That’s a real good ball club I faced today. I can’t say more than I gave it my best. When you play a team like that you have to give it your best.”
Outfielder Brad Czarnowski
“At the beginning of the day I wasn’t hitting the ball that well. Maybe the heat was getting to me a little bit, but towards the end of the game I really bared down. I got some good pitches and was able to capitalize.”
GAME NOTES
- The Huskies have not won a NCAA tournament game since defeating Providence in the 1974 District 1 playoffs at Fenway Park.
- The Huskies will face the loser of Tulane/UNC-Wilmington at 11:00 a.m. CDT on Saturday.