The baseball team and the city of Houston experienced a storm and calm after the storm this past weekend in the Tigers’ first road series of the season.
Friday night the Tigers suffered their first loss of the season in a close call with the University of Houston 2-1. Then the rain came and cancelled Saturday’s contest, giving LSU time to recover from the loss and regroup for the double header Sunday afternoon.
Friday’s loss was starting pitcher Lane Mestepey’s first loss of the season. He gave up two unearned runs but had nothing to hang his head about as the senior left-hander exceeded the all-time leader in innings pitched, setting the mark at 401 innings and counting.
Mestepey’s efforts proved to be no match for Houston ace Matt Farrington and his reliever Justin Vaclavik who together held LSU to just six hits on the night.
“Great pitching beats good hitting,” said coach Smoke Laval in a press release. “It was a matter of breaks. We had 10 strikeouts (at the plate) and some of our hitters took the night off. Mestepey pitched well enough to win and so did (Jason) Determann, but they didn’t.”
Junior firstbaseman Will Harris tried rallying the Tigers past the Cougars offensively. Harris led with three of the six hits for LSU, but the one-man show could not compete with the Cougar defense.
Sunday was an all-around good day for the Tigers who started the first game strong offensively putting up 14 hits combined.
Sophomore Clay Dirks took the mound to start the double header giving up 4 runs in 5.2 innings of play before being relieved by freshman Eric English who held the Cougars scoreless in 2.1 innings. Junior Chase Dardar entered the game in the ninth facing seven batters in just one inning, but the Tigers held on to the victory giving the team its first win of the weekend 11-5.
The doubleheader and series ended with game three late Sunday night. LSU continued with their ritual weekend rotation and called on Greg Smith to start the game. The junior left-hander pitched 7 innings and held Houston to only one earned run on five hits. Junior right-hander Justin Meier came in for Smith in the 8th to hold the Cougars scoreless with no hits to seal the victory 8-1 — giving the Tigers the series victory as well.