It was a tale of two halves for LSU baseball on Monday night, as they defeated Louisiana Tech 16-7 to improve to 2-1 on the young season. That phrase is often used to describe football games, but it was true during the Tigers’ first night game at Alex Box Stadium, too. 

To begin the evening, it looked like we’d be seeing another dominant performance from an LSU starting pitcher as we had in the first two games of the weekend. With five strikeouts and no runs allowed, AJ Labas cruised through the first and second inning. Things fell apart for him in the third. He allowed five straight hits to begin the inning, and Louisiana Tech jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. 

Dylan Crews continued his blazing start to his freshman season with a solo home run to right-center field in the bottom half of the third.

“I don’t see many guys doing that,” freshman third baseman Jordan Thompson said of his roommate’s 419 foot opposite field shot.

Louisiana Tech negated Crews’ efforts, coming right back and adding another run on a solo shot off Labas in the top of the fourth, and the veteran starter’s day was finished after giving up his fifth earned run of the night and 11th hit in his first start of the season.

Crews added another run on a bases loaded sacrifice fly to cut Louisiana Tech’s lead to 5-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning. Again, Louisiana Tech came back and added another run of their own in the next half inning. To this point, Crews was responsible for all of LSU’s runs and nearly all of their hits. 

Then in came freshman lefty Javen Coleman. As the first man out of the bullpen down 6-2 and inheriting a runner on base from Labas in the fourth inning, head coach Paul Mainieri may have just been looking for a guy to eat some innings and get his team through the rest of the game. Instead, Maineri got someone who brought energy to the mound and gave LSU new life down four runs. 

The bottom of the sixth is where the LSU offense began to find themselves. After three straight singles from Cade Beloso, Zach Arnold and Mitchell Sanford, Gavin Dugas came to the plate with one out and a chance to tie the game with one swing. He would do just that, and tie the game at six a piece on the first pitch he saw. 

“You win this fight, you win your battle,” Dugas recalled Maineri telling him as he approached the plate. “When I took that swing, I instantly knew I won that battle and I won that pitch.” 

On the very next at bat, although after a pitching change, Thompson whacked his first home run of his career. He gave LSU the lead, and gave the dugout a fist pump as he rounded first. With two swings of the bat, the Tigers went from down four to up one. It was LSU’s first three home run game since February of last season, and their first grand slam in over two years. 

LSU wasn’t done with the offensive onslaught, adding four more runs in the seventh inning. Dugas got it going, scoring a runner from third base after his grounder got under the glove of Louisiana Tech’s shortstop. In the next at bat, Thompson struck out swinging but a passed ball allowed him to reach base and for Drew Bianco to score from third. Later in the inning, Dugas scored on a fielder’s choice and Cade Doughty brought in one more on a sacrifice fly. 

While the bats were scoring runs at a rate rarely seen, Coleman slowed Louisiana Tech down to nearly a halt. He gave up just one hit, a solo home run, in 3.2 innings of work and collected seven strikeouts in his debut. 

“I can credit Javen for keeping us in that game,” Dugas said.

Defensively, Thompson gave Maineri something he hasn’t had at third base yet this season: reliability. 

“That was a key play in the ball game,” Maineri said of the eighth inning ending double play started by Thompson. “If that one gets through, they bring their tying run to the on deck circle.” 

LSU wrapped up the scoring in the eighth inning with Dugas’ sixth RBI of the night on a one-out single, a Jake Wyeth 3 RBI double and an RBI single from Doughty to extend the lead to 16-6. Jacob Hasty allowed one run in the ninth, but was ultimately able to close out the near four hour contest. 

It was a tale of two halves. The first was much like a continuation of the previous game. The bats got cold and whoever was on the mound had nothing going. The second was more like what Maineri has said he needs to see. Gavin Dugas warmed up the bats, Javen Coleman provided sure handedness on the mound, and the coach may have found his third baseman. 

“We never thought we were out of this game,” Dugas said. “That’s one thing I love about this team. We have a lot of fight in us.”