METAIRIE– As the wind howled from left to right on an unseasonably chilly April night, Andrew Stevenson’s approach was to put it on the ground.
It’d be the only way to ensure hits as the gusts reached 25 miles per hour at Zephyr Field and attempted to wreak havoc on the Tigers’ Tuesday tilt with Southern Miss.
Both on the ground and in the air, the Tigers beat the wind, scoring ten runs in the first four innings and staving off two early Southern Miss rallies to pull away for a 13-5 win in the Wally Pontiff Jr. Baseball Classic on Tuesday.
Stevenson’s first career four hit night paced the Tiger offense while senior Christian Ibarra chipped in a career-high four RBIs in a 15-hit performance for LSU.
“I was trying to slow it down,” Stevenson said. “Not trying to do to much. I was able to find a few holes and people were able to bring me around.”
Sophomore shortstop Alex Bregman’s RBI single to center started the scoring in the first after back-to-back singles from senior Sean McMullen and sophomore Mark Laird to open the game.
After a fielder’s choice to shortstop allowed Bregman to score from second, Stevenson sent Southern Miss starter Cody Carroll’s next pitch into center field for a base hit to plate another for a 3-0 lead after one inning.
After a clean first inning, freshman Tiger starter Alden Cartwright was unable to fend off the Golden Eagles in the second, allowing an infield single to open the inning before Tiger second baseman Kramer Robertson bobbled a grounder to put two on with no outs.
Two batters later, Southern Miss catcher Austin Roussel cranked a three-run home run over the right field fence to knot the game at three.
“We had some really good at-bats early in the game and got off to a nice lead,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “I thought Cartwright was really throwing the ball well. He cruised through the first inning and in the second inning, if he gets a little defensive help, he might cruise as well.”
The Tigers got defensive help from two Southern Miss errors in the second, the last of which scored second baseman Danny Zardon on Laird’s sharp grounder past the first baseman.
Bregman followed with an RBI double to pad the Tiger lead at 5-3.
In relief of Cartwright, junior Nate Fury struggled in the third, issuing three consecutive hits, including an RBI single, to begin the inning. Fury walked in another run four batters later to tie the game again at five.
After senior third baseman Christian Ibarra’s sacrifice fly in the third, the Tigers put it away in the fifth as Hale, Stevenson and Ibarra strung together consecutive hits in a four-run eruption. Ibarra’s hit — a two-run double into the wind — scored Hale and Stevenson to make it a 9-5 game.
Junior Henri Faucheux and freshman Parker Bugg steadied the Tiger bullpen from then on, following Fury’s shortcomings with 3 1/3 innings of one-hit ball.
“They both did a nice job,” Mainieri said. “I thought the whole bullpen really did a nice job after we got to that point in the game. It was really key, I thought.”
After those two righted the ship, sophomore Hunter Devall, senior Kurt McCune and junior Zac Person put together three no-hit innings for the LSU bullpen.
With a six-hour trip on a sleeper bus to Memphis looming after the game, followed by a critical three-game set at Ole Miss, Mainieri said it was a “fun win” for the club.
“It’d be nice to see that continue and carry into the weekend,” Mainieri quipped.