LSU rallies in ninth inning to down BYU
Published 11:40 am Friday, February 22, 2013
BATON ROUGE — LSU scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to earn a 6-5 walk-off victory over Brigham Young Thursday night at Alex Box Stadium.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Christian Ibarra tied the score at 5-5 with a one-out, solo home run over the left-field wall.
After a walk to Chris Sciambra and singles from Mark Laird and Alex Bregman, Raph Rhymes delivered a bases-loaded for the win.
The Tigers (5-0) will host Southeastern Louisiana (3-1) at 7 p.m. today. LSU and BYU will play again on Saturday.
“This game was really a grind from the beginning,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “We fell behind early, battled back, and fell behind again, but our players never doubted themselves. It’s much nicer to be on the positive end of a game like this. We’re pleased to win tonight, but we realize there are areas in which we need to improve.”
LSU took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a Mason Katz solo home run, his first dinger of the season.
BYU (2-3) answered in the third inning with four runs, including a three-run home run from Jaycob Brugman, giving the Cougars a 4-1 advantage.
The Tigers pulled closer in the third inning with a two-run double from JaCoby Jones to cut the BYU lead to 4-3.
In the bottom of the seventh, Bregman hit a high fly ball to shallow right that fell just inside the foul line, tying the score at 4-4. But BYU rebounded again to regain the lead with an RBI single from Brugman in the top of the eighth.
LSU right-hander Joey Bourgeois (1-0) struck out the side in the top of the ninth inning.
BYU closer Matt Milke (0-1) was charged with the loss as he allowed the ninth-inning runs.
LSU starter Aaron Nola gave up four runs but struck out six throughout his six innings of work.
LSU Mark Laird was 4-for-5, while Ibarra finished 2-for-3 including the tying home run in the bottom of the ninth.
