BATON ROUGE, La. — Junior Erick Dessens and senior Ryan Ellis each drove in a pair in the late innings with a couple of extra-base hits, but the hole was already too big for visiting Sacramento State as host and No. 2-ranked LSU scored multiple runs in each of the first four innings on Friday night en route to a 15-4 win in seven innings at Alex Box Stadium.
The two teams return to the field on Saturday (March 7) with first pitch now scheduled for Noon PT. The start time is four hours earlier than originally scheduled due to inclement weather in the forecast.
After opening up with four runs in the first, the Tigers added three in the second, five in the third, and three more in the fourth to back the starting effort of Casan Evans, who carried a perfect game into the sixth before the Hornet bats caught up to him.
Cameron Sewell earned the first hit of the night off Evans with a ball that bounced under the glove of a diving second baseman to lead-off the inning and Michael Perazzo followed with a clean single through the right side to put a pair on with one outs.
Two batters later, Dessens caught the LSU centerfielder playing shallow, launching a triple over his head and to the wall, allowing both Sewell and Perazzo to score easily.
Sacramento State struck for two more in the seventh as
Jace Jeremiah and
Sam Harry each drew walks to bring up the pinch hitter Ellis, who lined a 1-0 pitch through the infield and into the right centerfield gap for a rolling double, scoring his teammates in front of him.
The Tigers then ended game early with the run-rule, striking out the final batter of the night.
Right-hander
Ethan Lay (0-1) suffered the loss, allowing four earned on seven hits and striking out one over one inning of work.
Andrew Monson pitched a perfect fifth inning, striking out the Tigers in order to give the Hornets some momentum before
Colin Hunter pitched a clean sixth, working around walk and striking out one.
Evans earned the win for LSU, allowing two runs on three hits and striking out nine without a walk over 5.2 innings.
