BATON ROUGE — No. 2 seed LSU scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a three-run lead over No. 3 seed San Diego State and held on for a 6-4 win in a NCAA Regional opener Friday afternoon at Goss Stadium in Corvallis, Oregon.
The Tigers (38-25) advance to a 9 p.m. Saturday game against the winner of No. 1 seed/host Oregon State (44-10-1) and No. 4 Northwestern State (37-22), which were scheduled to play at 9 p.m. Friday on ESPNU.
"It's always good to win the first game of these tournaments," LSU coach Paul Mainieri said in a post-game press conference. "If you don't win the first two games, you create such a hole for yourself and it tests your pitching staff. So we're halfway there."
Mainieri will start sophomore right-hander Zack Hess (7-5, 4.43 ERA) Saturday.
Nick Coomes singled for the third time to lead off an inning to start the sixth with the score knotted at 3-3. Coomes reached second on a wild pitch by reliever Jacob Erickson and scored on an RBI single by Jake Slaughter after one out for a 4-3 LSU lead. Hal Hughes sacrifice bunted Slaughter to second base off reliever Logan Boyer before Brandt Broussard walked. Zach Watson followed with a RBI single for a 5-3 lead, and Antoine Duplantis drove in another run with a single for the 6-3 lead.
San Diego State (39-20) scored in the eighth to cut LSU's lead to 6-4. The Aztecs will play the Oregon State-Northwestern State loser at 3 p.m. Saturday.
LSU struck early with three runs in the bottom of the second inning, but San Diego State answered in the fourth with three of its own.
Coomes started the Tigers' second inning with a lead-off single. Beau Jordan followed with a single, and Slaughter was hit by a pitch from San Diego State's senior right-handed starter Jorge Fernandez (6-3, 4.65 ERA) to load the bases. Hughes' RBI ground out to first base put LSU up 1-0. Then Broussard's RBI ground out to shortstop made it 2-0. Slaughter scored on a wild pitch, and it was 3-0.
Sophomore left-hander LSU starter Nick Bush (1-1, 3.16 ERA) allowed one hit through the first three innings with a strikeout and one walk, but he ran into trouble in the fourth.
After one out in the top of the fourth, Chad Bible singled off Bush, who got the second out on a fielder's choice grounder. But Bush allowed a single to Dean Nevarez and walked Casey Schmitt to load the bases. Then Bush threw a wild pitch to cut the Tigers' lead to 3-1. No. 9 batter Jacob Maekawa followed with a two-run double down the third-base line to tie it 3-3. Bush struck out Matt Rudick to end the inning.
Bush left after five innings, having allowed the three runs on four hits with two walks and two strikeouts. Devin Fontenot relieved Bush to start the San Diego State sixth and got the win to improve to 3-0 on the season. Fontenot allowed two hits and one run in three innings with one walk and four strikeouts.
Todd Peterson pitched the ninth inning, allowing no hits, runs or walks with one strikeout.
