Baton Rouge - The LSU Tiger baseball team sprinted out to a 5-1 lead after two innings of play, only to see the visiting South Alabama Jaguars race past them in the 9th inning scoring three runs to win 7-6 Wednesday night in Alex Box Stadium.

LSU scored two in the 1st and three in the 2nd inning of play but where limited to no runs for the next six innings while the Jaguars slowly chipped away at the 5-1 lead scoring single runs in the three middle innings.

LSU would send ten pitchers to the plate, with eight of the ten recording three outs or less.  The Tiger pitching staff combined to allow ten walks on the night.  South Alabama starter Sean Trimble was quickly chased after 1.2 innings pitched, the Jaguars then turned to Andy Arguelles who shut down the LSU bats for the next 6.1 innings striking out eight batters on four hits and no runs. 

“We were short-handed tonight, we had a couple of our regulars who were unavailable due to minor injuries, and I think that affected us tonight,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “It’s not making excuses, but we had to hold them out to make sure they would be ready for the weekend series against Auburn. We also had to hold back guys like (relief pitchers) Zack  Hess and Hunter  Newman, because I wanted to make sure they are 100 percent for the Auburn series.

“We tried to get through it with the rest of the guys, and it looked like we were going to figure it out and get to the finish line. It’s a disappointing loss, but there were a lot of good things out there tonight and now we have to get ready for Auburn.”