LSU Baseball's Young Stars Come Through With Clutch Hits in 5-4 Win Over No. 12 Ole Miss
The LSU offense had been non existent for much of the game leading into the seventh inning. After an error plagued first inning from Ole Miss that led to two runs, the Tigers went most of the next six innings without a hit.
But in the seventh inning, clutch, situational hitting from LSU's young stars helped the Tigers take a late lead and hold on to win game one 5-4.
Situational hitting has been one of the focuses of this group and trailing 4-2 in the seventh inning, a leadoff double from Giovanni DiGiacomo was the setup to an inning full of big hits. It was the freshman duo of Tre' Morgan and Dylan Crews who came through with the hits of the evening. Morgan blasted an RBI single and Crews followed with his 11th home run of the season, a two run shot that sparked the Tigers' win.
"I was really trying to be aggressive in the AB, didn't want to get to two strikes," Crews said. "Just wanted to put a bat on the ball, got a good pitch to hit and didn't miss it."
Crews and Morgan are no strangers to star making plays but the fact they were able to come through on the road in an SEC environment was extremely impressive to coach Paul Mainieri.
"Anytime it's done in the SEC game on the road against a top ranked team, you've gotta put them right up there at the top of the list," Mainieri said of the clutch hits. "It just felt like being in the SEC again with big crowds and a lot of people caring about college baseball."
It was an overall solid outing from ace Landon Marceaux, who found success in a much different way on Thursday evening. Throughout this season, Marceaux has been able to retire batters at will but didn't have his best stuff or location against an explosive Ole Miss offense.
Instead he relied on his defense and ability to retire batters with runners on base to get him out of jams. He certainly wasn't perfect, allowing solo home runs in the third and fourth innings in a tightly contested game, but he also left eight runners on base in his 5.1 innings of work.
Twice Ole Miss had two runners on base with one out and twice Marceaux was able to get out of the inning unscathed as the two teams were gridlocked in a 2-2 tie after five innings.
The performance was needed as LSU was having trouble converting in its own right, without Rebels ace Gunnar Hoglund, who didn't start due to being a little stiff from his previous start. Instead the Tigers faced Derek Diamond on the mound and thanks to a trio of fielding errors right off the bat, were able to capitalize to take an early lead.
But after the successful start, the Tigers were able to scrape together just one hit over the next five innings and couldn't pull away while Marceaux was keeping the Rebels relatively at bay. Ole Miss got to Marceaux in the top of the sixth, blasting a two run homer to chase the LSU ace out of the game and take the 4-2 lead.
The clutch hitting from the freshmen Crews and Morgan would give LSU the lead right back in the seventh. LSU had an opportunity to add insurance runs in the eighth by loading the bases with one out but Drew Bianco made a risky decision and paid the price, being thrown out at second for the final out and keeping one run from coming across.
The ball was given to veteran Devin Fontenot, who fired three straight scoreless innings in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings to close the game out. Fontenot looked stellar in his outing, like the closer that LSU expected for much of the season.
He didn't allow a run and struck out the side in the ninth after loading the bases in the inning, by far one the best performance of the season for the veteran.
"I feel like I barely broke a sweat in the first two innings but it was great to get that win," Fontenot said. "We've gotta start turnin the win loss column the other way and that's a good way to start it off."
LSU will look to secure its second SEC series win on Friday night with AJ Labas on the mound.
"We'll be facing some great pitching the rest of the weekend," Mainieri said. "We put all our cards out on the table tonight and fortunately for us ou guy was a little bit better and we were able to get it done."