When LSU’s catcher Tyler McManus hit a bomb of a home run over the left center field wall to give LSU a 2-0 lead, his teammates started gathering outside the home dugout like normal, with one exception.
Cade Beloso was carrying a large purple boombox covered with LSU logos and emblems. Each of the two speakers sported a large roaring face of a tiger. He and his teammates mobbed McManus on his fourth home run of the year, and the boombox made appearances again when Cade Doughty hit a two-run home run later and Dylan Crews added a solo shot.
Doughty offered some key insight into how the boombox came to be. Freshman infielder Brennan Holt got the boombox as part of an NIL deal, and the team has now gotten a hold of it as their means of celebrating clutch runs being scored.
“Kind of fires us up,” Doughty said. “We have a song that we play a good amount. I won’t say how much but we play it good amounts.”
What song do the Tigers get down to after plating those runs?
“Crunk Ain’t Dead,” Doughty said.
Doughty assured everyone that the version they listen to is the clean version.
In its 6-2 win, LSU defeated No. 11 Georgia on the long ball and with another gutsy performance from Ma’Khail Hilliard. Hilliard pitched six innings and gave up eight hits, three walks and two earned runs with seven strikeouts. It was a standard Hilliard performance this season, continuing his “bend but don’t break” mentality on the mound that has set his record at a program best 5-0. He threw 113 pitches, 79 of them for strikes.
Hilliard was helped by some improved defense behind him. LSU only committed one error on the night via a Jordan Thompson miss throw, but the team has truly made some defensive strides from where they were at the beginning of the season. Hilliard knew he had to trust them to be there for him.
“I feel like the defense played exceptionally well,” Hilliard said. “They stayed behind me, and I made sure that if I keep doing what I’m doing and throwing strikes, it was going to pay off. Just knowing that I got my guys behind me, and of course they came in big time situations and put runs up. That’s always helpful.”
Notably, Josh Stevenson had a great game in left field with his glove and took some great at-bats at the plate, scoring LSU’s only run that wasn’t off a home run via a deep sacrifice fly to center field. Stevenson made a great running catch towards the wall to rob Georgia of extra bases and had four total putouts on the night.
“The ease with which he made some of those defensive plays shows his athleticism, and we really need that,” Jay Johnson said of Stevenson. “I like our team, don’t get me wrong, but we need more athleticism, and he’s providing us some of that.”
LSU will have its hands full when they face the SEC’s top pitcher in the Bulldogs’ Jonathan Cannon tomorrow. He leads the conference with a 1.55 ERA. But with any luck, maybe the team boombox will get to continue to blare the players’ favorite song.
“I think it fires us up, and we’re having a good time with it,” Doughty said. “Hopefully, we get to hear that song a lot more throughout games, and you know, crunk ain’t dead, so.”