LSU baseball had to wait an extra 24 hours to kick off its run in the SEC Tournament, but a suddenly red-hot offense made sure it was worth the wait.
The 4th-seeded Tigers fell in an early 2-0 hole, but landed all the significant punches the rest of the way for an 11-6 victory over 12th-seeded Kentucky to set up a showdown with top-seeded Tennessee on Friday.
“Took us a couple innings to settle into the game a little bit," LSU head coach Jay Johnson said. "I don’t think we’ve had three days off of not playing, let alone five all season. So I think once we got our bearings I thought we took great at-bats.”
The Tigers offense scored double-digit runs for the 4th time in the last 5 games, and did it without the services of Jacob Berry and Cade Doughty, who both missed the game with injuries.
Josh Pearson led the way for the Tigers offensively, going a perfect 5-for-5 with 3 RBIs and a home run. Dylan Crews continued to dominate SEC pitching with a pair of hits, a pair of walks and 4 runs scored. Tyler McManus and Jordan Thompson contributed 3 RBIs each.
Ma'Khail Hilliard drew the start for the Tigers and scuffled early, allowing two runs and a home run to Kentucky freshman Devin Burkes in the second inning to put the Tigers in an early hole. But things turned in LSU's favor with 3 runs apiece in the 3rd and 4th innings, and the Tigers continued to pour it on. Hilliard didn't surrender another run over the rest of his 6 innings while striking out 6 batters. Hilliard's poise in a shutdown 4th inning to work out of a base-loaded jam was a turning point early in the game, with the Tigers expanding the lead the following inning.
“Very proud of the approach to this thing," Johnson said. "We were very professional all week in doing what we needed to do to prepare. We really wanted to play well tonight and we did, so a good night for the Tigers.”
Burkes struck again with a 3-run home run off Devin Fontenot in the top of the 8th inning, but it was too little, too late as Grant Taylor and Riley Cooper came on to retire the final four batters.
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The result sets up a super regional rematch from a season ago in the winner's bracket as the Tigers take on the Vols, which blasted Tennessee 10-1 earlier in the day. The bracket had been delayed significantly by rain, which pushed back or delayed multiple games over the first two days of the action in Hoover, Alabama. The Volunteers were a dominant force in the SEC this season, finishing with a 25-5 record in the conference and with 50 wins overall on the season. The start time for that game was still TBD as of early Friday morning, with the action set to kick off with Florida and Arkansas at 9:30 a.m. central time.
"Best team in the country," Johnson said of Tennessee. "We’re excited. We missed them in the regular season, so if nothing else the RPI bump will be good.”
Kentucky will face off with Vanderbilt in the loser's bracket.