Tulane Falls to LSU in a Major Sport for the First Time in 1,064 Days

It had been 1,064 days since LSU had beaten Tulane in football, basketball, or baseball. That was until Wednesday, March 21st.

LSU freshman A.J. Labas was a bit wild at the beginning of the first start of his career, hitting the first two Tulane batters of the game, but he settled down and Tulane could not cash in on the golden opportunity. Tulane did strike first, however, knocking Labas around for four runs on four hits by Acy Owen, Grant Witherspoon, Kody Hoese, and David Bedgood in the top of the third. Unfortunately for the Green Wave, it would be all they would get for the rest of the game.

LSU chipped away at the lead by scoring one run in the bottom of the third off of Tulane freshman starting pitcher Josh Bates. They scored two more off Bates in the bottom of the fourth to make it 4-3. A break-out inning of five runs off of Chase Solesky in the bottom of the fifth gave LSU an 8-4 lead. LSU would add two more off of Sam Bjorngjeld and Ryan Green in the bottom of the seventh to make it 10-4 and that would be all she wrote.

With the LSU win, the Tigers moved to 15-7 on the season while the Green Wave fell to 9-13. Tulane used seven pitchers over the 10-4 loss. Pitching has been without a doubt Tulane’s weak point this season with only starters Keagan Gillies and Kaleb Roper resembling anything close to consistent. Bates has shown potential in his freshman season and only gave up three hits to LSU over 3.1 innings, but he walked six batters which lead to a pitch count of 79 and resulted in him getting pulled so early.

LSU’s top player, center fielder Zach Watson, led the way for the Tigers by going three for three with three RBI’s and scoring three runs in the 10-4 win. Tigers’ left fielder Daniel Cabrera went four for five with three runs scored and an RBI. Second baseman Brandt Broussard and right fielder Antoine Duplantis also added two RBI’s each to help build the ten-run performance.

Tulane Head Coach Travis Jewett had this to say after the game, “That’s a very good team obviously, and we knew we were going to have to keep scoring and try to keep them off the board. They strung some good at-bats together and we gave them some free stuff, but you have to give them all the credit in the world. In the middle of the game it was still within reach and I thought our bats needed more of a razor focus, but the score got away from us and I thought our approach at the plate did too.”