BATON ROUGE, La. – Opening the season with an 8-1 start as a consensus top five team nationally, the LSU baseball team has been named the BASF Team Chemistry MVP Award winner for the month of February.
With a host of returning upperclassmen and a nationally-ranked freshman class, the Tigers opened a highly-anticipated 2017 season by earning back-to-back shutouts against Army and defeating Air Force 10-3 in the opening weekend of the season.
The Tigers have won their last five in a row, beginning with an 8-1 win at home against Hofstra on Feb. 22, going on to sweep a weekend series against the Maryland Terrapins by outscoring the ACC member 29-6 over the weekend. On Tuesday the Tigers came back to defeat Nicholls 3-2 at Alex Box Stadium.
On the mound, LSU has been paced by its duo of senior Jared Poche’ and junior Alex Lange. Poche’ became the first LSU player since 1979 to throw a no-hitter in a 6-0 win against Army in seven innings, marking LSU’s sixth in program history. The Lutcher, Louisiana, native has yet to give up a run in 15.0 innings of work, flirting with another no-hitter against Maryland, allowing just one hit in a 14-0 win.
After striking out six in his debut against Army on February 18, Lange fanned a team season-high 12 Maryland batters in his second outing as he leads the squad with 18 on the season. Sporting a 0.82 ERA, Lange has only given up one run and walked two in 11.0 total innings.
At the plate, LSU is hitting a blistering .351 as a team led by Cole Freeman‘s .500 average, belting 14 hits in 28 total at-bats. Senior Kramer Robertson has one more hit than Freeman, hitting .484 with a team-leading four doubles.
Of LSU’s 10 home runs, Greg Deichmann accounts for four as coming into this week he was ninth nationally in the category, just two off of the national lead.
The Tigers will hit the road this week, participating in the Shriner’s Hospitals For Children Houston Classic. LSU will face No. 1 TCU on Friday, Baylor on Saturday and close the event on Sunday against No. 21 Texas Tech.
About BASF
As the world’s largest chemical company, BASF’s manufacturing presence in Louisiana includes operations in Geismar, Zachary and Vidalia, with nearly 2,000 employees and contractors in the state. For more information about careers at BASF, visit www.basf.us/la.