May 17, 2015

Box Score | Quotes | Photo Gallery

COLUMBIA – Top-ranked LSU belted out 11 hits with a pair of homers on the way to an 8-1 victory over South Carolina on Saturday night. The Tigers improve to 46-9 and 21-8 in the SEC while the loss drops the Gamecocks to 32-24 and 13-17 in league play.

Alex Lange allowed just one run on one hit while striking out nine batters in five innings of work to earn the win. The freshman right-hander is now 10-0 on the year.

LSU went ahead 2-0 in the top of the second with a two-run home run off the bat of Chris Chinea.

The Tigers added two more in the top third on a RBI double from Jake Fraley and a solo home run from Andrew Stevenson. Alex Bregman increased LSU’s lead to 5-0 with an RBI single in the fifth.

Marcus Mooney drove in a run for the Gamecocks in the bottom of the fifth, cutting the deficit to 5-1.

In the top of the eight, the Tigers extended their lead to 8-1. Chinea drove in a run with a RBI double to left, Mark Laird’s fielder’s choice brought home another and Jared Foster scored Chinea with an RBI single.

Sophomore right-hander Taylor Widener suffered the loss after allowing four runs on four hits and striking out three batters in three innings of work. He is now 1-5 on the year. Sophomore left-hander Josh Reagan added 3.2 innings of relief, allowing just one run of four hits while striking out four batters.

GAME CHANGER
The Tigers’ home runs in the second and third inning helped LSU build a 4-0 lead they would not relinquish.

KEY STAT
LSU limited South Carolina to just two singles.

NOTABLES
• Kyle Martin’s single in the bottom of the eighth was the 200th hit of his career. He became the 27th player in school history with 200 or more career hits.
• The sellout crowd of 8,242 was the second of the series, fifth this season and 43rd in Carolina Stadium history.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Chad Holbrook
“Congratulations to LSU, phenomenal team, great regular season, they are as advertised. I was extremely impressed with their pitching staff today. Lange was as dominant as a young freshman pitcher as I’ve seen in this league in a long time. Our team was ready to play and we had some juice and energy, we were bouncing off the walls and he just stuffed us. Sometimes you have to give credit to the opposing team and that was one hell of a team over there. Not much weakness there, they can run, they are physical, they are strong, they got a great player at shortstop, they got power arms, they are the complete package. In our state, that we are from a healthy standpoint, it’s tough to compete against them. We’ll move on to Tuesday, go down to Hoover, and see if we can play well. We have an opportunity to play in the postseason as far as the SEC Tournament is concerned. If we can play our best baseball down there – who knows? Let’s go down there and play one game at a time. Obviously the season is probably on the line Tuesday, let’s go down there and see if we can keep playing.”

UP NEXT
The Gamecocks are the No. 10 seed at the SEC Tournament and will face No. 7 seed Missouri in a single elimination game in Hoover on Tuesday May 19. The game will begin approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of game one, which starts at 10:30 a.m. ET. The game will be televised on the SEC Network and is available on the Gamecock IMG Network including flagship 107.5 “The Game”.