BATON ROUGE — Third-ranked LSU’s streak of 12 straight series wins came to an end on Sunday, as Auburn scored six unanswered runs after facing a four-run deficit to take the series finale from the Tigers by a score of 7-5 at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU (19-6, 4-2) fell into a four-way first-place tie in the SEC Western Division with Alabama, Mississippi State and Ole Miss. The Plainsmen (19-8, 3-3) won their first league series of the year after losing two games to Tennessee last weekend.
“We pitched good enough to win,” said head coach Smoke Laval. “We had 11 hits, no errors, but we got beat by a better club today.”
The Tigers were 16-0 on the season when leading after seven innings of play and had not lost a series since April of last season when Arkansas took three games at Alex Box Stadium.
Justin Meier (1-2) was tabbed with the loss after allowing three runs on four hits in one inning of relief.
Michael Nix (4-1) earned the victory out of the bullpen, tossing two innings of scoreless relief and limiting LSU to one hit.
Greg Smith started the game for the Tigers and worked 6.2 innings, allowing three runs on six hits. The southpaw tied a career high with nine strikeouts.
LSU’s 2-3-4 hitters of Blake Gill, Ryan Patterson and Clay Harris combined to go 6-for-13 with two runs and two RBI. Both Patterson and Harris extended their hitting streaks to 14 games.
Auburn took an early 1-0 lead in the second, utilizing back-to-back doubles to its advantage, including a run-scoring hit by Josh Donaldson.
The Tigers responded by pushing across five runs in the third inning, their largest outbreak of the weekend. Will Harris started the frame with a single, and then Michael Hollander reached on a hit batsman.
Gill got LSU on the board, ripping an RBI single through the middle. After an RBI single by Clay Harris and a fielder’s choice groundout by Nick Stavinoha, Matt Liuzza capped the barrage shooting a two-run double into the left field corner, just inside the foul line.
The Plainsmen cut into the 5-1 score, plating a run in the fifth and another in the seventh. Bruce Edwards tripled off of Smith with one out in the seventh, and Tyler Johnstone drove him in on his single.
Smith fell into trouble, hitting the next batter and having to face one of the conference’s leading hitters, Karl Amonite. Amonite, who had already fanned twice in the game, struck out again on Smith’s ninth punchout on the day, tying a career high for the junior.
After Smith’s 114th pitch of the day, Laval elected to go to Meier. It took the junior righty one pitch to retire the side, forcing a pop-out on the cleanup hitter Josh Bell.
A three-run eighth inning by Auburn erased the 5-3 deficit and gave the Plainsmen their first lead since the second inning. Pinch hitter Joey Huskins started the furious rally with a leadoff double and came into score two batters later on Philip Stringer’s double.
Johnstone then delivered the clutch hit of the game, roping a two-out, two-run single to end Meier’s day and give AU a lead they would not relinquish.
“Meier made some good pitches, but Johnstone got a 1-2 fastball in the middle of the plate,” said Laval. “He got the big hit and was the right guy at the right time.”
Johnstone finished the game with a 3-for-5 effort and three RBI.
After collecting nine hits through the first five innings, LSU only managed two hits the rest of the way as relievers Jared Shore, Michael Nix and closer John Madden stymied the Tiger attack.
Madden held LSU to no runs in the ninth and earned his second save of the weekend.
Auburn 7, LSU 5 (Mar 27, 2005 at Baton Rouge, La.)
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Auburn………….. 010 010 131 – 7 13 0 (19-8, 3-3 SEC)
LSU…………….. 005 000 000 – 5 11 0 (19-6, 4-2 SEC)
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Pitchers: Auburn – Blake; Mullins(3); Shore(5); Nix(7); Madden(9). LSU – Smith, G.; Meier(7); Determann(8); Faircloth(9).
Win-Nix(4-1) Save-Madden(4) Loss-Meier(1-2) T-2:48 A-7254
Actual attendance: 2,534
Determann faced 2 batters in the 9th.