LSU Comes From Behind, Defeats Sam Houston St., 8-5

The LSU Tigers scored four runs in the eighth inning on Saturday evening, to capture an 8-5, come-from-behind victory, over the Sam Houston St. Bearkats, in the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional, at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field in Baton Rouge, La.

LSU, the designated visiting team, scored the first run of the game in the top of the first inning, when Christian Ibarra drew a bases loaded walk, scoring Alex Bregman, to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead.

Sam Houston St. responded with five runs off of LSU starter Aaron Nola in the bottom half of the frame, all of them unearned, as the Tigers committed two throwing errors, and the Bearkats capitalized on doubles by Ryan O'Hearn and Carter Burgess, to take a 5-1 lead.

The Tigers scored two runs in the second, as Ty Ross scored on a fielders choice grounder off the bat of Jared foster, before Bregman singled home Alex Stevenson, to cut the Sam Houston St. lead to 5-3.

LSU added an unearned run in the top half of the third inning, when Sean McMullen drove home JaCoby Jones with a ground ball, to close the gap to 5-4.

The score stayed that way until the top half of the eighth inning, when the Tigers scored four runs off of Sam Houston St,'s Adam Scott. LSU had only one hit in the inning, a single by Bregman, but took advantage of three walks, a hit batter, and an error,

LSU wound up scoring seven unanswered runs, to come away with the two-run victory, and stay unbeaten in the regional.

Bregman led theTigers at the plate, going 3-for-5, with two runs scored, and an RBI, while Raph Rhymes and Ross contributed two hits apiece.

Nola (11-0), who pitched seven innings, without allowing an earned run, recorded the win for the Tigers, with Chris Cotton pitching the final two innings to pick-up his 16th save, while Scott (2-1) suffered the loss for the Bearkats.

With the victory, LSU improved to 53-9 on the year, while Sam Houston St. fell to 38-21.

Sam Houston St. falls into an elimination game against Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns, on Sunday afternoon, at 2 o'clock, with the winner advancing to play LSU at 7 o'clock on Sunday night.

If LSU fails to win the regional on Sunday night, an if necessary game is scheduled for 7 pm on Monday night.

View the game box score.