A big eighth inning powered LSU baseball past an early slump against Grambling on Tuesday night in the 7-1 contest.
After falling in two in-state battles earlier in the 2026 season, the Tigers needed this victory more than ever.
The bullpen has struggled throughout the season for LSU, but tonight it did just enough to get the Tigers’ offense to the plate in the eighth inning and push past Grambling.
“Credit to Grambling,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson said postgame. “I mean, they threw their entire weekend rotation in this game, and a couple of the key relievers. We had plenty of traffic. We just didn’t get a two-out hit when we needed to. It was a really important game to win.”
Throughout the first seven innings of play, the Tigers only pushed across five hits. In the eighth inning alone, LSU tallied three. The purple and gold showed patience throughout the game by scratching a few runs across throughout the contest, and it ultimately paid off with the four-run eighth inning.
The scoring started in the second inning on a swinging bunt from starting third baseman John Pearson, and two more runs were later tacked on in the game. But it would be Omar Serna Jr. who changed the momentum of the game.
He blasted a monstrous home run to lead off the eighth inning, and that started the scoring frenzy.
“[Serna is] outstanding, “Johnson said. “He’s got a ton of ability. It’s fun to have him here. He’s one of the first guys we actually committed because he committed before the rule change, when you could talk to guys [earlier].”
Senior outfielder Chris Stanfield had two RBI on a single to center field, and sophomore Cade Arrambide was hit by a pitch for an RBI.
This game wasn’t high scoring from the jump, so the Tigers’ bullpen had to hold off as much as possible, and it did just that.
The Tigers used eight pitchers during the game versus Grambling, and no pitcher threw more than two innings. Reagan Ricken got the start on the mound for LSU, but his leash proved short as he exited the game after only pitching a single inning.
Grant Fontenot was the pitcher who truly started the game for the Bayou Bengals, despite only pitching two innings. He would then hand the ball to Mavrick Rizy, who would make a home on the bump.
Rizy threw 2 innings, striking out three and not walking a single batter. He only allowed one hit during his outing and stayed hot to prepare for the weekend.
Each pitcher held their own in their outings, coming in and closing the door on any potential rallies or staying locked in to get their job done. It didn’t matter the role; each of the eight pitchers that threw did enough to bail out the lack of early offense.
The staff totaled 15 strikeouts, while only allowing four free passes. The pitching was truly the star of the show for the first seven innings.
Johnson said postgame that a big part of the success on Tuesday was the adjustments his staff has made in recent games.
“I’m not a pitching guru, but I know what winning pitching is at this level, and I know where I believe some of our shortcomings are,” Johnson said. “It’s just tightening up some preparation things, or taking [the pitchers] to another level in terms of what we’re doing bullpen-wise with the starters.”
This game might not have started pretty, but LSU pulled it together from all sides of the ball to secure its second in-state victory of the season.
The Tigers will try to keep it going into their SEC home opener on Thursday as they take on Oklahoma. First pitch will be at 7 p.m. in Alex Box Stadium.
