BATON ROUGE — The LSU baseball team returns to SEC action this weekend as the Tigers travel to Columbia to face the South Carolina Gamecocks. Game 1 of the series is set for 6 p.m. CDT Friday, Game 2 will start at 3 p.m. CDT Saturday and Game 3 will begin at 12:30 p.m. CDT Sunday.
All three games can be heard on the LSU Sports Network (98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net.
Friday’s game will be televised live by Fox Sports Net South (Cable Ch. 26 in Baton Rouge), and Sunday’s game will be televised live by the Guaranty Sports Network (Cable Ch. 10 in Baton Rouge).
LSU (22-8-1 overall, 8-4 SEC) enters Friday’s game ranked No. 4 in the nation in all three college baseball polls. The Tigers are in second place in the SEC Western Division, one game behind Ole Miss (9-3).
South Carolina (25-7, 7-5) is ranked No. 7 by ESPN/Baseball Weekly and No. 9 by Baseball America. The Gamecock are in second place in the SEC Eastern Division, one game behind Tennessee (8-4).
Freshman left-hander Lane Mestepey (5-0, 3.25 ERA) will start Friday’s game for LSU. Mestepey fired a complete-game victory against Kentucky last Friday, as he limited the Wildcats to one earned run on nine hits with one walk and five strikeouts.
LSU head coach Skip Bertman has not yet decided upon Saturday’s and Sunday’s starting pitchers. The likely candidates include senior right-hander Jason Scobie (1-1, 6.21 ERA), junior left-hander Shane Youman (3-1, 4.82 ERA) and junior right-hander Roy Corcoran (4-1, 6.05 ERA).
South Carolina will counter this weekend with senior right-hander Kip Bouknight (6-1, 4.58 ERA) on Friday, junior left-hander Gary Bell (6-3, 2.82 ERA) on Saturday and junior right-hander Chris Spigner (5-2, 3.18 ERA) on Sunday.
The Tigers enter Friday’s game with a .323 team batting average, which is second-best in the SEC. Second baseman Mike Fontenot leads LSU with a .402 (33-for-82) average, and he has 10 doubles, five homers and 25 RBI.
Third baseman Wally Pontiff is batting .383 (46-for-120) with four doubles, one triple, four homers and 26 RBI, and first baseman Bryan Moore is hitting .372 (42-for-113) with 13 doubles, five homers and 29 RBI.
LSU leads the all-time series with South Carolina, 13-3-1, as the teams first met in 1992. This weekend marks LSU’s first appearance in Columbia since 1996. The Tigers are 5-1 all-time at South Carolina’s Sarge Frye Field.