METAIRIE, La. — Sixth-ranked LSU launched three home runs while four Tiger pitchers combined to hold No. 11 Rice to five hits in an 8-2 victory over the Owls on Wednesday night in the second annual Wally Pontiff Jr. Classic at Zephyr Field.
The Tigers (23-8) snapped a two-game losing skid to Rice, who fell to 21-11 overall.
LSU plays host to No. 4 South Carolina in a key Southeastern Conference series this weekend at Alex Box Stadium. Game times are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (Friday), 2 p.m. (Saturday) and Noon (Sunday). The Owls travel to Ruston and face Louisiana Tech in a WAC series, beginning on Friday.
All proceeds of Wednesday’s game benefited the Wally Pontiff Jr. Foundation, in honor of the late third baseman who lettered at LSU between 2000-02.
After 31 games, Rice pitchers had combined to allow only six homers all season, while maintaining a sparkling 2.58 team ERA in 31 games. The elite Owl staff had held opponents to a .203 batting average in 269 innings pitched.
Blake Gill, Ryan Patterson and Nick Stavinoha combined for six of LSU’s 12-hit attack — the most allowed by Rice pitching all season.
“We took it to them every single inning,” said head coach Smoke Laval. “We didn’t lose focus and didn’t give up, pitched well, hit some doubles and some homers against some pretty good arms.”
Freshman Eric English (1-0) earned the first win of his career, hurling three innings of shutout ball in relief of Justin Meier in the fifth. English struck out two and walked none.
Meier did not qualify for the win, despite limiting Rice to no runs on one hit in a solid four-inning outing.
Bryce Cox (1-2) suffered the loss and was roughed up for three runs in one inning out of the bullpen.
The Tigers’ leading hitter in the past five games had been Stavinoha, and he continued his recent hitting spree by putting LSU ahead for the second time in as many games. The right fielder blasted a solo homer — his seventh of the year — deep over the left field wall off of starter Bobby Bell to give the Tigers a 1-0 advantage.
“We did some timely hitting and hitting throughout the lineup,” said Stavinoha, who was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and two RBI. “We got clutch hits, two-out RBI and overall just better swings off. There weren’t a lot of balls that got by us with bad swings. That really helped us.”
Two defensive blunders by Clay Harris and Michael Hollander allowed the Owls to match the score at one apiece in the third without the benefit of a hit. Harris and Hollander booted groundballs, allowing Clay Reichenbach to drive home the tying run on a sacrifice fly.
But Harris compensated for the error in the home team’s half of the fourth, sending a towering two-run homer — his first since March 21 at Georgia — over the centerfield wall.
Stavinoha’s aggressive base running brought in another run in the fourth. After reaching on a walk, the senior took third on Liuzza’s base hit and then scampered home on Derek Hebert’s infield single, beating a throw home from the pitcher Cox.
He later added an RBI single as part of a two-run LSU fifth.
Ryne Tacker, the Owls’ fourth pitcher of the night, was greeted on a homer as well, surrendering a tape-measure shot to Will Harris to leadoff the sixth.
Back-to-back doubles by Gill and Patterson padded an 8-1 LSU advantage after six innings of play.
English and fellow relievers Chris Cahill and Greg Smith combined to yield one run over the next five frames. Designated hitter Joe Savery’s solo homer in the eighth off of Cahill closed out the scoring.
LSU 8, Rice 2 (Apr 06, 2005 at Metairie, La.)
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Rice……………. 001 000 010 – 2 5 0 (21-11)
LSU……………. 010 322 00X – 8 12 2 (23-8)
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Pitchers: Rice – Bell; Cox(3); St.Clair(4); Tacker(5); Pessa(6); Pendleton(8). LSU – Meier; English(5); Cahill(8); Smith, G.(9).
Win-English(1-0) Loss-Cox(1-2) T-2:46 A-6393
HR RICE – Savery (2).
HR LSU – Harris, C. (5); Stavinoha (7); Harris, W. (2).
Cox faced 3 batters in the 4th.