The largest crowd of opening day in LSU baseball history experienced a memorable game as the Tigers erased a six-run deficit through six innings to defeat Notre Dame 7-6.
After five innings of a stagnant offense, LSU roared to life in the sixth with junior right fielder Antoine Duplantis, sophomore center fielder Watson and freshman left fielder Daniel Cabrera reaching base with no outs and the Tiger crowd bringing its loudest cheers of the evening.
The swing of one bat by junior Bryce Jordan breathed new life for the Tigers with his first career grand slam and cut a 6-0 deficit to 6-4.
In the bottom of the eighth with two outs and runners on the corners, sophomore shortstop Josh Smith blasted a dinger over the right field wall to give LSU the 7-6 lead.
It wasn’t all fun and games for Smith who struggled defensively in the game with two errors.
“I played about as bad as you can play at shortstop,” Smith said. “I’m not a person to hang my hat on my mistakes. I knew I had either hit it to the warning track like last year or it was going out.”
Mental mistakes were a key part of this game as two errors were committed by LSU in the first three innings. A dribbler down the first base line in the third inning had junior pitcher Caleb Gilbert and freshman Nick Webre both running towards the ball with no one at first.  
The very next batter was hit by Gilbert and two pitches later a passed ball advanced the runners to second and third with nobody out.
That sequence led to two more runs in the third, giving Notre Dame a 3-0 advantage at the halfway mark of the third inning.
Opening day was not kind to Gilbert with the night getting worse as the innings wore on.

Standing at 49 pitches through three innings, an opening double by Eric Gilgenbach had another runner in scoring position. Those events would lead to three more runs over the next two innings, putting LSU in the 6-0 hole.
Gilbert’s day would end in the fifth inning and would finish with two strikeouts, allowing nine hits and five runs on 73 pitches.
The hero of the pitching staff tonight went to sophomore Matthew Beck who pitched the best two and a third innings of his career. Beck struck out four of the first six batters he faced and finished with a career high five strikeouts on 45 total pitches.
“They really came in and shut the door on them,” Gilbert said. “I just couldn’t be more proud of them. What they did was phenomenal.”
Senior Austin Bain was equally electric in the final two innings, closing the game and finishing with four strikeouts on eight batters faced.
“I made that error in the seventh or eighth and I asked him to pick me up,” Smith said. “He looked at me and said I got you man, I love you. That’s something that will stick with me forever. That’s going to be dangerous if we can have him in the back half of the bullpen.”
A bright spot offensively was the freshman Webre who rocked the first two pitches he saw of his career, with a single and a double.
LSU and Notre Dame will play game two of the weekend series at 4 p.m. Saturday with sophomore Zack Hess getting his first start of the season.