Rewind: Florida 1, LSU 0

Alex Faedo won a pitchers’ duel with Alex Lange as Florida edged LSU 1-0 in the opening game of their Southeastern Conference series at McKethan Stadium in Gainesville on Friday night.

HOW THEY SCORED

Florida sixth inning – Dean Liput doubled and advanced to third base on Jonathan India’s sacrifice bunt. Liput scored on JJ Schwarz’s sacrifice fly to the leftfielder. FLORIDA 1, LSU 0

KEY STRETCH OF GAME

Trailing 1-0, LSU put the tying run at second base with no outs in the ninth. Josh Smith walked and moved to second base on a wild pitch by Tyler Dyson. However, Dyson proceeded to strike out the next three batters – Zach Watson, Jake Slaughter and Brennan Breaux – to protect the one-run advantage.

KEY TEAM STATISTICS

LSU outhit Florida 7-6. There was one extra base hit in the game – the sixth-inning leadoff double by Liput. . .The Tigers stranded eight runners – five in scoring position. LSU was 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. . .Florida stranded six runners – three in scoring position. The Gators were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. . .A throwing error by Lange on a bunt was the lone miscue in the game. . .Florida pitchers walked two and struck out 11 Tigers hitters.

INDIVIDUAL STAT LEADERS

LSU

Jake Slaughter: 2-for-4

Alex Lange: 8 innings, 6 hits, 1 run, 1 earned run, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts

FLORIDA

Dean Liput: 3-for-4, 1 run scored, 1 double

Alex Faedo: 7 innings, 7 hits, 7 strikeouts

LSU’S PLAYER OF THE GAME

For the third time in his last four starts, Lange did not pick up a victory. However, there was nothing wrong with his performance against the Gators. Lange retired the first eight batters before Nick Horvath had an infield hit in the third. Florida didn’t get a runner past first base until the fifth inning when Lange did his best pitching of the night. The Gators loaded the bases on singles by Nelson Maldonado and Mike Rivera and Lange’s error. Lange then struck out Ryan Larson and Horvath and retired Dalton Guthrie on a pop up to the second baseman. After allowing a run in the sixth, Lange pitched out of trouble in the eighth. With runners at first and second, Lange got Schwarz to fly out to the rightfielder to end the threat.

NOTES

Breaux was the designated hitter. He went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. . .Two LSU players failed twice to drive in a run with a runner in scoring position – Breaux and Papierski, the bottom two hitters in the lineup. . .Every Tigers player struck out except for Antoine Duplantis. . .Every LSU player reached base at least one time except for Breaux. . .Faedo was lifted after seven scoreless innings. . .Michael Byrne started the eighth for the Gators and walked Cole Freeman with one out. Southpaw Andrew Baker relieved Byrne and got Duplantis to fly out and Deichmann to strikeout. . .Dyson pitched out a ninth-inning jam to register the save. . .The Tigers have lost three straight games to the Gators – 6-2 in last season’s regular-season finale, 1-0 in the SEC tournament and 1-0 on Friday. . .The previous time LSU lost a 1-0 game to a SEC opponent also came against Florida – in 2011. The last SEC team other than the Gators to beat the Tigers 1-0 was Georgia in the 2004 SEC tournament. . .LSU is 17-6 overall, 3-1 in the SEC. The Tigers are in third place in the Western Division – one game behind Arkansas and Auburn. LSU is 1-5 in games away from The Box this year. . .Florida is 15-8 overall, 1-3 in the SEC. The Gators are in fifth place in the Eastern Division – 2½ games behind Kentucky. . .The paid attendance was 4,485. . .Jared Poche will be the starting pitcher against Florida on Saturday.

FROM THE LOCKERROOM

Coach Paul Mainieri’s comments: “We just came up a little bit short. It was a great game. Two of the best pitchers in the country were going after it. We had some good swings against Faedo. We had opportunities. We just couldn’t get the clutch hit when we had runners in scoring position. Our kids were competing extremely hard against some really good arms. It’s tough to lose a game like that. But, we’ll put it behind us and look forward to game two Saturday.”

UP NEXT

LSU will play Florida at McKethan Stadium in Gainesville in the second game of their series Saturday. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. Central. The LSU-Florida game will be available on ESPN2.