Almost identical to Friday’s contest, Georgia carried a two-run lead into the bottom of the eighth inning of Saturday’s game.
And just like Friday night, LSU relied on the deep ball to rally back to beat the Bulldogs, defeating Georgia 8-4.
After a seemingly lackluster seven innings, the Tigers (35-9, 14-6 Southeastern Conference) erupted for six runs on five hits in the frame, highlighted by a grand slam from junior right fielder Mason Katz.
“I was really trying to think deep fly ball to center,” Katz said. “If I can, I get one in automatically, but if I can get two in, do it.
Junior left fielder Raph Rhymes followed Katz’s homer with a towering shot of his own, clearing the dugout and sending the Alex Box Stadium crowd of 8,607 into a frenzy.
“Every game takes on it’s own personality, its own ebb and flow,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “We struggled early in the game.”
The Tigers committed two errors in the first inning, while sophomore starter Ryan Eades surrendered two hits, and Georgia (24-20, 8-12 SEC) jumped out to a 2-0 lead before a Tiger stepped to the plate.
LSU responded in the bottom of the first with two runs of their own, highlighted by Katz and Rhymes’ back-to-back RBI hits.
Georgia stormed back in the third, buoyed by another Tiger error, to grab a 4-2 lead that would stand until the fireworks of the eighth inning.
“It was just a runaway freight train at that point [in the eighth inning],” Mainieri said.
With Eades shaky on the mound, Mainieri turned to junior Joey Bourgeois, who gave the Tigers three innings of no-hit ball, and picked up his second win of the season.
“My off-speed was working today,” Bourgeois said. “Ryan didn’t have his best stuff … I just told him ‘Ryan I got your back.'”
Junior Nick Goody struck out the side in the ninth to send the Tigers to their third-straight win.
Katz finished the night 3-for-4 with five RBI’s, while Rhymes finished 2-for-4, stabilizing his batting average at .503 for the season.
The Tigers will look for the sweep Sunday as the teams square off at 1 pm at Alex Box Stadium.