BATON ROUGE, La. – Freshman catcher Mike Papierski collected three RBI Friday night, including a two-run double in the fifth inning, to propel the Gold to a 4-3 win over the Purple in Game 2 of the LSU Baseball Purple-Gold World Series in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.
The Gold also won Game 1 of the series, 6-4, on Thursday night. Game 3 of the series will be played at 5 p.m. CT on Sunday.
Though the Purple has lost the first two games, it can still be declared the winner in the series if it defeats the Gold on Sunday by four runs or more.
“I thought it was an exciting game and more crisply played than last night’s game, particularly on defense,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “I thought (Gold starter) Doug Norman threw the ball well, and (Purple starter) Jared Poche’ got some big outs when he needed to. Defense for the most part was pretty good, and there were some good at-bats.
Trailing 3-2 in the top of the fifth, the Gold staged a rally against Purple reliever Hunter Newman. Shortstop Alex Bregman and second baseman Conner Hale produced back-to-back singles with one out, and they both scored on Papierski’s double to right to give the Gold the lead.
Newman struck out left fielder Beau Jordan and retired third baseman Grayson Byrd on a ground ball to end the inning.
The Purple had runners on second and third in the bottom of the sixth, but Gold reliever Hunter Devall worked out of the jam to earn the save. Devall struck out right fielder Turner Graham, and Gold centerfielder Andrew Stevenson ran down a Kramer Robertson fly ball in the left-centerfield gap to end the game.
The Gold struck for two runs in the top of the first as Papierski delivered a sacrifice fly and Jordan contributed a run-scoring single.
The Purple narrowed the gap to 2-1 in the bottom of the first when Robertson reached on a bunt, stole second base, tagged on a Mark Laird fly ball to deep center and scored on a errant throw toward third base.
The Purple grabbed a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the fourth as first baseman Kade Scivicque singled and later scored on a wild pitch, and catcher Chris Chinea singled and scored on left fielder Jake Fraley‘s RBI double.
Poche’ worked three innings, allowing two runs on three hits with one strikeout. Norman limited the Purple to one run on two hits in three innings with one walk.
Newman fired three strikeouts in his two innings of relief work for the Purple.
“Overall, it was a good game tonight,” Mainieri said. “A lot of good, positive things happened. I thought that Kramer crushed that last ball and it looked like it had a chance to go off the wall, but if the ball stays in the park, Stevenson has a chance to catch it. Papierski continues to play well, and he continues to show that he’s not overwhelmed by this environment. Jake Fraley came alive tonight and swung the bat well with a couple of doubles, and Beau Jordan came through with a clutch hit and excellent defense.
“There were several balls hit hard tonight, but it was obviously not a hitters’ night with the cool weather and the wind blowing in. We’re looking forward to wrapping up the series on Sunday, and it should be an exciting finish to fall practice.”