By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag News Services
No. 24 LSU couldn’t handle prosperity after its two best Southeastern Conference series on the season, and lost to Bethune-Cookman, 10-7, in befuddling fashion at Alex Box Stadium Thursday night.
The Tigers (22-12, 6-6 SEC) continued to boot the ball around with two errors, but LSU’s bullpen blew the game in the seventh inning as it allowed five runs on two walks, two hit batsmen and two hits. Second baseman Seth Dardar didn’t help as he tried to side field a hard grounder for an error, allowing two unearned runs to score.
LSU had just come back from a 5-0 deficit at Tennessee on Sunday to win 16-6 in 12 innings to take the series two games to one. The previous weekend, the Tigers took two of three from No. 19 Kentucky in Baton Rouge.
The Tigers took a 6-5 lead in the bottom of the sixth on a solo home run by Jake Brown and looked poised for another comeback win.
But disaster struck as Bethune-Cookman (23-10, 10-2 Southwestern Athletic Conference) took a 10-6 lead in the seventh.
Reliever Santiago Garcia gave up a triple Darryl Lee and an RBI single to Andrey Martinez to start the Bethune-Cookman rally after one out and tie the game 6-6. Danny Lachenmayer relieved, immediately hit Michael Rodriguez and left the game. Then Mavrick Rizy came on and immediately hit Maikol Lucena. He didn’t leave the game, but he probably should have.
After Jeter Polledo flew out to right for the second out, Rizy walked Erick Almante and Chris Watson with the bases loaded to give the Wildcats an 8-6 lead. Then he left the game. Jorge Rodriguez hit a hard grounder off reliever Dax Dathe that Dardar booted, allowing two runs to score for a 10-6 Wildcats’ lead.
Dathe then left the game, and Reagan Ricken finally got LSU out of the inning by striking out Sergio Rivera. LSU pushed across a run in the ninth for the 10-7 final. Garcia took the loss to fall to 1-1 after allowing two earned runs on three hits in two and a third innings.
Bethune-Cookman’s win was no fluke as it put up 12 hits off nine pitchers, and all nine starters registered at least one hit.
LSU returns to SEC action this weekend at No. 25 Ole Miss (23-11, 5-7 SEC), which did its job on Tuesday against a SWAC team, beating Alcorn State, 11-1.
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