LSU downs Northwestern St. but loss to Oregon St. ends season
After a crushing defeat the night before at the hands of Oregon State, the LSU Tigers played strong against Northwestern State in an elimination contest on Sunday. They utilized a late rally to get past the Demons 9-5 and will face Oregon State Sunday at 8pm.
In this one the Tigers were able to get out to a 2-0 lead with a run in the first and one in the third for Cam Sanders who was on the hill. Sanders had been rolling until he hit a little bit of trouble in the fourth inning when he gave up a two-run home run to Sam Taylor. Game was tied at 2.
In the sixth inning Sanders would give up another home run, this time to Lenni Kurnet and then it was Matthew Beck into the game. Beck would yield another run in the inning when third baseman Jake Slaughter committed a throwing error which that runner would come into score. 4-2 Demons.
However, that lead would be short lived as Zach Watson walked to start the seventh, Antoine Duplantis then doubled, and Daniel Cabrera brought them both in with an RBI single. Just like that we were tied at four.
Northwestern would break through for a run in the bottom of the eighth to take a 5-4 lead heading to the ninth inning.
The LSU Tigers backs would be up against the wall, season on the line but they would rally back with a vengeance. In total they rallied for 5 runs and would go onto win 9-5.
In game one of the Corvallis Regional Finals, the team that LSU eliminated last year got revenge as Oregon State wrangled the Tigers 12-0. It was a less than impressive showing and way for the season to end but this team simply ran out of gas and pitching in order to compete.
Devin Fontenot started and Oregon St. took it to him early, they ambushed him for five runs and made him throw nearly 50 pitches in the first inning. Austin Bain got the next crack at it and went further, throwing 3.2 innings but also gave up five runs.
As for the offense they were only able to muster three hits and none between innings three and eight.
Give credit to this team, they had to deal with injuries all season long and to get to a Regional Final was pretty impressive. The Tigers finish the season 39-27.