NEW ORLEANS — Few college baseball rivalries can match the intensity and passion of the LSU-Tulane series, and the two heavyweights of Louisiana college baseball will write the 274th edition in this storied series on Tuesday night at 7:05 p.m. when the Fighting Tigers and the Green Wave get together under the roof of the Louisiana Superdome in the Big Easy.
This marks the second consecutive year that LSU and Tulane have met in the Superdome, with the Tigers winning 9-5 last year on April 10 in front of an NCAA record crowd of 27,673. As of Monday evening, more than 15,000 tickets for the game have been sold, with several thousand more tickets expected to be sold before first pitch on Tuesday.
Tickets for the game are $15 and remain on sale from the LSU Athletic Ticket Office. Baton Rouge area residents can call the ticket office at 578-2184, and the call is toll-free outside the Baton Rouge area at (800) 960-8587. Tickets are also available online at www.lsusports.net.
The game will be broadcast by the full LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge, WWL-870 AM in New Orleans), with live audio and live statistics from the game available online at www.lsusports.net.
The game will be the third college baseball game broadcast by the brand new College Sports Television, a New York-based group that is the first cable network exclusively devoted to the broadcast of college sports. The network telecast Rice at Houston on April 16 and Texas at Nebraska on April 19, with several more games slated for broadcast this season.
CSTV is currently available only on DirecTV channel 610, but several stations throughout Louisiana will televise the game live, including cable channel 10 in Baton Rouge, which has carried the broadcasts of the Louisiana Sports Network and Jumbo Sports Network throughout the year.
Other stations carrying the game live in Louisiana include KLAF in Lafayette, KCLA in Alexandria, KPXJ in Shreveport, KWBJ in Morgan City, cable channel 8 in Lake Charles and Time Warner Cable in Monroe. The game will not be available live in New Orleans, but shown on a tape-delay basis at 9 p.m. on WNOL (cable channel 13).
In addition to another opportunity to set an NCAA attendance record, both the Tigers and Green Wave come in playing some of their best baseball of the season. This game represents the season series rubber match, as both teams have held serve at home, with Tulane winning 5-4 in 11 innings at Zephyr Field on March 11 and LSU winning 8-0 in Baton Rouge on April 15.
LSU (30-13-1, 15-5-1 Southeastern Conference) enters the game on a five-game wining streak, including a three-game sweep of SEC foe Tennessee last weekend at Alex Box Stadium. The Tigers scored 42 runs and pounded out 47 hits in sweeping the Volunteers, scoring at least 10 runs in each game and setting a season high for runs with 17 on Friday and tying a season high for hits with 19 on Sunday.
The Tigers (No. 6 Collegiate Baseball, No. 10 Baseball America, No. 12 ESPN/USA Today) hold a two and a half game lead over Auburn and a three-game lead over Mississippi State with nine games remaining in the SEC schedule. LSU visits Mississippi St. this weekend before hosting Auburn and going to Arkansas to close the season.
The Tigers’ potent offense is headlined by sophomore outfielder Ryan Patterson, who won SEC Player of the Week honors after he hit .632 (12-for-19) with 10 RBI in the Tigers’ four games last week. Patterson, who is batting .353 on the year and hitting .467 with runners in scoring position, was 9-for-14 in the Tennessee series, including a 4-for-5 effort on Saturday and a four RBI game on Sunday.
On the mound, LSU coach Smoke Laval will start senior right-hander Jake Tompkins (1-4, 4.50) for the second consecutive game against Tulane. In the meeting at Baton Rouge, Tompkins threw five shutout innings and allowed just one hit and struck out seven as the Tigers scored all of their runs in the first three innings and coasted home.
Tulane (32-13, 14-7 Conference USA) has won its last three conference series, including a 2-1 series win at Saint Louis last weekend, the Green Wave’s first series win on the road this year. The Wave (No. 23 ESPN/USA Today, No. 25 Baseball America) has been nearly unbeatable in New Orleans, going 24-1 at Turchin Stadium and 26-1 in the city of New Orleans with wins over LSU at Zephyr Field and at the University of New Orleans.
The Green Wave has collected just eight hits in the two games vs. LSU this year, batting a collective .121. The Wave’s top hitter remains junior first baseman Michael Aubrey, an All-America candidate who leads Tulane in batting average (.434), home runs (10) and RBI (58).
Tulane coach Rick Jones will hand the ball to freshman right-hander Billy Mohl (4-1, 4.43) to start against LSU. Mohl has walked just five batters in 42 2/3 innings this year, but has given up 57 hits and a .318 batting average against.
If the game is close, the Wave will more than likely call on left-handed relief ace Joey Charron (3-5, 2.95), as the junior has not allowed a run in 5 1/3 innings this year vs. LSU, picking up the win in the game at Zephyr Field.
LSU leads the all-time series, 154-116-3, as this is the oldest intercollegiate athletic rivalry for both schools, beginning with a 10-8 win by the Tigers on May 13, 1893.
The Wave has won six of the last nine meetings in the New Orleans area, although all six wins have been at Zephyr Field. Since the first meeting at Zephyr Field in 1998, all nine meetings in the Big Easy have drawn at least 10,000 fans.
Jones is 11-13 vs. LSU since coming to Tulane in 1994, while Laval is 4-4 vs. Tulane.
LSU hosts UNO on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. before traveling to Starkville for the three-game series with Mississippi St. Friday’s game is set for 6:30 p.m. followed by games at 3 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.