The No. 2 LSU baseball team will look to put the nightmare of its midweek loss to Nicholls State on Feb. 18 in the past when it takes the field against in-state foe Southeastern Louisiana at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Alex Box Stadium.
“Southeastern has been impressive for all of the years I’ve been here,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “They beat us 6-1, or something like that, the first year I was here. We’ve always had great games with Southeastern. Southeastern has had a good program for many years under Jay Artigues and now under Matt Riser.”
The two teams will reportedly decide if this morning they will move the game to Thursday because of inclement weather.
The Lions (5-3) are a familiar foe to Mainieri and the Tigers (6-1). The two teams’ last meeting was the opening game of the 2014 Baton Rouge Regional, a game the Tigers won 8-4 after storming back from a 4-2 deficit after six innings.
LSU will trot its freshman Doug Norman onto the mound for his second career outing after he was the pitcher responsible for the Tigers upset loss to Nicholls. Norman went 4 2/3 innings, giving up nine hits and five runs with four earned on 70 pitches.
“We’ll get to see Doug Norman get a second start and hopefully go out there and show some improvement,” Mainieri said. “Hopefully, he’ll pitch a little bit better and, we’ll play a little bit better than we did in the midweek game last week.”
It wasn’t the start to his career Norman envisioned. After the game, he said he may have thrown too many strikes, getting ahead of most of the batters he faced but not challenging them while ahead in the count.
“I have to keep the confidence I had going into the first start,” Norman said. “I know it didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but you just got to let it go, which I have, and get ready to compete and do my thing Wednesday.”
The Fort Mill, South Carolina, native has the faith of Mainieri, who said he expects to see Norman go out and pitch a good ball game after an unfavorable first outing, which Norman has been itching to improve upon since it ended.
“Coach says we have until midnight to think about the game we just had before letting it go,” Norman said. “If I let it linger and just get pissed about it, it’s not going to do anybody good. It’s not going to do me or this team any good, so I got over it pretty fast, and I’ve been looking to get out there
ever since.”
The Tigers faced their fair share of in-state opponents early in the season, and with the success of Nicholls State, the state of Louisiana has experienced baseball success early on.
Mainieri said it might be the best year for in-state teams he has seen since taking over the program in 2007.
“These midweek games are not easy games, believe me,” Mainieri said. “And this time of year, when they’re not playing conference weekends, they’re especially tough because they can gerrymander their rotation. Let’s go. Let’s play the game. Let’s have some fun, and let’s see what happens. It’s good for our development.” 
You can reach Jack Chascin on Twitter @Chascin_TDR.