BATON ROUGE - The LSU Tiger baseball team erupted for eight runs in the first three innings, but still had to hold on late for the 9-5 win over Northwestern St. on Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium.

The Tigers improve to 32-21 overall as they are now finished with play at Alex Box Stadium for the year. LSU will close out the regular season on the road at Auburn starting on Thursday. 

LSU scored two runs in the first and three runs in the second and third inning and appeared to be cruising to their final mid-week win of the season.

However with an early SEC series looming at Auburn, LSU head coach Paul Mainieri was limited with his pitching rotation against the Demons. LSU sent eight pitchers to the mound with four of the eight failing to record an innings worth of work.

Tiger starter Matthew Beck was brilliant in his first start of the season, as he fired three innings of scoreless ball allowing two hits and striking out six. 

LSU senior Austin Bain had a big night at the plate and on the mound, as he was 3 for 5 from the plate with two RBI, two runs scored and then in the eighth inning Bain moved from first to the mound where he recorded the final four outs of the game to earn his fourth save of the season. 

“I was concerned going into this game because Northwestern is a tough team, and we had just come off an emotional series against Alabama,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “Fortunately, pitchers like Matthew Beck, Caleb Gilbert and Austin Bain stepped in and did a great job. We got off to a good start offensively; in the first three innings, I thought we had some tremendous at-bats in taking an 8-0 lead, and we were able to hold on for the win.”