Advertisement
baseball Edit

LSU, SEC champs with sweep of Miss. St.

Cole Freeman had three hits and walked twice as LSU earned a tie for the Southeastern Conference championship with Florida by defeating Mississippi State 11-7 at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville on Saturday night.

Cole Freeman
Cole Freeman


HOW THEY SCORED

LSU second inning – Josh Smith singled and stole second. Beau Jordan hit a two-run homer over the leftfield fence. Michael Papierski walked and Zach Watson was hit by a pitch. Papierski scored on a single by Kramer Robertson. Watson advanced to third base and Robertson moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Freeman. Watson scored on a single by Antoine Duplantis. LSU 4, MISSISSIPPI STATE 0

Mississippi State second inning – Hunter Vansau doubled. After Elijah MacNamee struck out and Josh Lovelady popped out to the second baseman, Luke Alexander walked. Vansau went to third and Alexander advanced to second on a wild pitch by Eric Walker. Vansau and Alexander scored on a double by Gridley. LSU 4, MISSISSIPPI STATE 2

Mississippi State third inning – Cody Brown walked and Hunter Stovall hit a two-run homer over the leftfield fence. LSU 4, MISSISSIPPI STATE 4 LSU fourth inning – With one out, Robertson walked and Freeman singled. After Duplantis struck out, Robertson scored on a single by Greg Deichmann. LSU 5, MISSISSIPPI STATE 4

LSU fifth inning – With one out, Jordan doubled and scored on a single by Papierski. LSU 6, MISSISSIPPI STATE 4

LSU sixth inning – Freeman walked and was forced at second base on a ground ball to the first baseman by Duplantis. After Deichmann singled, Duplantis scored on a single by Nick Coomes. Deichmann scored on a single by Smith. Jordan was hit by a pitch to load the bases. After Papierski struck out, Coomes scored on a walk to Watson. LSU 9, MISSISSIPPI STATE 4

Mississippi State sixth inning – Lovelady and Alexander walked. After Gridley struck out, Lovelady scored on a double by Rooker. Alexander and Rooker scored on a single by Jake Mangum. LSU 9, MISSISSIPPI STATE 7

LSU seventh inning – Freeman singled. Duplantis struck out and Freeman stole second. Deichmann was intentionally walked. Freeman scored on a throwing error by the shortstop Gridley on Coomes’ ground ball. LSU 10, MISSISSIPPI STATE 7 LSU eighth inning – With one out, Robertson tripled and scored on a double by Freeman. LSU 11, MISSISSIPPI STATE 7

KEY STRETCH OF GAME

After Mississippi State wiped out a 4-0 deficit with two runs in both the second and third innings, LSU came right back in each of its next two at-bats to score runs. Deichmann gave the Tigers the lead for good with a two-out, run-scoring single in the fourth. One inning later, Papierski followed a one-out double by Jordan with a RBI single to put LSU on top 6-4.

KEY TEAM STATISTICS

LSU outhit Mississippi State 14-9. The Tigers had four extra-base hits – two doubles, a triple and a home run. . .LSU stranded 16 runners – 12 in scoring position. The Tigers were 8-for-23 with runners in scoring position. . .Every LSU starter drove in a run and every LSU starter except for Watson had a hit. . .Bulldogs pitchers walked ten and hit two batters. . .Each team committed one error.

INDIVIDUAL STAT LEADERS

LSU

Cole Freeman: 3-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 run scored, 1 double

Greg Deichmann: 2-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 run scored

Beau Jordan: 2-for-4, 2 RBIs, 2 runs scored, 1 home run, 1 double

Josh Smith: 2-for-4, 1 RBI, 1 run scored

Kramer Robertson: 2-for-5, 2 runs scored, 1 RBI, 1 triple

Eric Walker: 4 innings, 6 hits, 4 runs, 4 earned runs, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts

MISSISSIPPI STATE

Brent Rooker: 3-for-4, 1 RBI, 1 run scored, 1 double

Jake Mangum: 1-for-4, 2 RBIs

Hunter Stovall: 1-for-5, 2 RBIs, 1 run scored, 1 home run

Ryan Gridley: 1-for-5, 2 RBIs

Luke Alexander: 0-for-2, 2 runs scored

Cole Gordon: 3.1 innings, 4 hits, 5 runs, 5 earned runs, 4 walks, 2 strikeouts

LSU’S PLAYER OF THE GAME

Freeman came to the plate six times and had a productive result on each occasion. Freeman drew a walk and stole second base in the first. He put down a sacrifice bunt which led to a run in the second. Freeman singled to set up a run in the fourth. He walked to lead off the sixth when the Tigers scored three runs. Freeman opened the seventh with a single, stole second and came across the plate on an error. Finally, Freeman doubled home a run in the eighth.

NOTES

LSU used its regular lineup. . .Five Tigers starters reached base at least three times – Freeman (three hits, two walks), Deichmann (three walks, two hits), Smith (two hits, two walks), Robertson (two hits, one walk) and Jordan (two hits, one hit by pitch). . .Every LSU starter scored a run and drove in a run. . .The Tigers left the bases loaded in the sixth and seventh innings. Robertson flied out to rightfield to end the sixth and Papierski popped out to the second baseman for the third out in the seventh. . .Four Bulldogs relievers gave up six runs and ten hits in 5.2 innings. . .Walker was lifted in favor of Nick Bush after four innings with LSU ahead 5-4. Bush was effective in the fifth, but he gave up three runs and two hits in the sixth. . .Caleb Gilbert took over for Bush with the tying run at the plate and one out in the sixth. Gilbert got Brown to fly out to the centerfielder and struck out Stovall. Gilbert, who picked up the victory, struck out three batters in the seventh. . .Hunter Newman threw two perfect innings with two strikeouts. . .The last time LSU swept a series from Mississippi State in Starkville was 1975. The Tigers won four games from the Bulldogs that year. . .LSU finished the regular season 39-17 overall, 21-9 in the SEC. The Tigers are SEC co-champions with Florida. The Gators are the No. 1 seed in the SEC tournament since they won the series against LSU. The SEC title was the fourth for the Tigers in Paul Mainieri’s 11 seasons as coach. . .Mississippi State finished the regular season 34-22 overall, 17-13 in the SEC. The Bulldogs ended fifth in the overall conference standings. . .The paid attendance was 9,007. . .The start of the game was delayed three hours by rain.

FROM THE LOCKERROOM

Coach Paul Mainieri’s comments: “It’s amazing when you think about it to win 11 of your last 12 SEC games. We were this close to sweeping our last four SEC series. We’ll be happy to share the SEC championship with Florida. I am just so proud of our guys. We know we had more in us. The season had peaks and valleys, but I knew we could play solid baseball. We played tremendous baseball in this series. Many different guys were heroes this weekend.”

UP NEXT

LSU will play Missouri or Texas A&M in a first-round game of the SEC tournament on Wednesday at Hoover (Ala.) Metropolitan Stadium. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. Central. Missouri and Texas A&M will meet in a play-in game Tuesday afternoon. LSU’s first-round SEC tournament game will be available on the SEC Network.

Advertisement