The Tigers started their weekend series against South Carolina with a dominant pitching performance by Landon Marceaux as he racked up 12 strikeouts in seven innings against the Gamecocks.
Marceaux allowed only three hits and one walk during his outing. Of the 12 strikeouts, only two were on a called third strike, as he kept batters guessing with off speed pitches, and a nasty put-away curveball.
“Landon was an ace in every sense of the word tonight,” Head Coach Paul Mainieri stated postgame. “He got big outs when he needed them; it was an amazing performance by him, he put the whole team on his shoulders, and the whole team played great behind him.”
Marceaux improved to 4-3 on the year following this impressive performance against No. 10 South Carolina.
The Tigers got out to an early lead in the first as Tre’ Morgan singled up the middle and two batters later Gavin Dugas hit his team-leading tenth homerun making it a 2-0 game. Between the bottom of the second and the end of the sixth the Tigers picked up only two hits and kept South Carolina in the game.
South Carolina was threatening to score in the top half of the seventh inning following a leadoff triple, but a heads up play by shortstop Jordan Thompson for a play at the plate kept the Gamecocks off the board.
The Tigers were able to double their lead during the bottom half of the seventh. Tre’ Morgan led off with an eight-pitch walk, and scored from first on a Dylan Crews double down the leftfield line to make it 3-0. Gavin Dugas singled in the next at bat moving Crews to third, and Cade Doughty proceeded to hit a sacrifice fly to deep rightfield scoring Crews from third, 4-0.
Cade Beloso mashed his third homerun of the season during the eighth inning, putting the Tigers up 5-0.
South Carolina scored its only run of the game in a dramatic ninth inning. After a throwing error allowed the leadoff batter aboard, a walk and a hit batter loaded up the bases for the Gamecocks. The next batter grounded into a 5-3 double play, but the runner on third scored in the process, 5-1. Devin Fontenot struck out the final batter of the game, and the Tigers took game one of the series.
“I just thought we played a really great game tonight in every facet,” said Head Coach Paul Mainieri. ”We’re playing an outstanding ball club in South Carolina and their pitchers all have power arms. Our at-bats were just tremendous, we only struck out six times against those good arms.”
LSU improved to 21-12 overall, 4-9 in the SEC with the win in game one. Game two of the series is scheduled for Friday at 7PM at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.