BATON ROUGE — Ryan Patterson, Clay Harris and Nick Stavinoha collected five RBI apiece as LSU rolled to a 21-10 victory over Southern University in a slugfest Tuesday night at Lee-Hines Field on the SU campus.
Patterson’s five RBI tied a career-high as the junior left fielder went 3-for-4 with four runs and a three-run homer that capped a four-run third inning.
Twenty of the Tigers’ 21 runs came during the third, fourth and sixth innings, spearheaded by shortstop Derek Hebert, who reached on a leadoff single in each of the frames. Hebert scored four runs and collected the first four-hit game of his career.
The Tigers collected 18 hits, including home runs by Patterson, Clay Harris and Will Harris.
Jordan Faircloth (1-3) captured his first career win, going 3.2 innings in relief of starter Lane Mestepey. Faircloth allowed one run on three hits and added three strikeouts.
Mestepey was touched for eight runs (seven earned) on 10 hits in 4.1 innings. The junior southpaw surrendered two homers to designated hitter Gerard Gause in the third and fourth innings. Marcus Townsend also greeted Mestepey with a two-run homer in the second.
Jeff Allen, the second of seven Southern pitchers, suffered the loss (4-2) in just one inning of work. Allen allowed three runs on two hits while walking three during his stint.
LSU (29-10), which improved to 39-1 in the all-time series with Southern, travels to Knoxville this weekend to face Tennessee in a pivotal Southeastern Conference series.
Southern (24-8), which saw its 13-game win streak end, plays at Grambling State this weekend in a Southwestern Athletic Conference series.
LSU 21, Southern 10 (Apr 20, 2004 at Baton Rouge, La.)
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LSU…………….. 004 457 010 – 21 18 1 (29-10)
Southern………… 023 130 001 – 10 15 2 (24-8)
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Pitchers: LSU – Mestepey; Faircloth(5); Bonura(9). Southern – Frederick; Allen(3); Revere(4);Moore(5); Scott(6); Dugas(8).
Win-Faircloth(1-3) Loss-Allen(4-2) T-3:26 A-1200
HR LSU – Patterson (8); Harris, C. (5); Harris, W. (3).
HR SU – Gause 2 (2); Townsend (5).
Frederick faced 4 batters in the 3rd.
Allen faced 3 batters in the 4th.
Moore faced 5 batters in the 6th.
Scott faced 1 batter in the 8th.