BATON ROUGE, La. – A combination of solid starting pitching and two base hits gave the Nicholls State University baseball team a two-run lead over No. 3 LSU in the fifth inning, but the Tiger pitching staff shutdown the Colonels the rest of the way and LSU scored three unanswered runs for 3-2 victory on Fat Tuesday at Alex Box Stadium.
With the loss, Nicholls falls to 4-4 on the season and drops its second-straight meeting with the nationally ranked Tigers (8-1). LSU won in Thibodaux last season after the Colonels defeated the Tigers in Baton Rouge in 2015, 6-3.
The Colonels were held to four hits, with two coming in a two-run fifth which broke a scoreless tie.
Justin Holt scored the first run after crossing the plate on a sacrifice bunt by
Troy Cahill. Holt led off the inning with a hit-by-pitch and moved to third on a hard single to left from
Alex Tucker. Two batters later,
Chet Niehaus made it 2-0 with a liner to straight center.
Mike Hanchar made the start on the mound for Nicholls and lasted 4.1 innings. Hanchar, the reigning Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week, kept LSU off the board through four innings of work, but the Tigers tagged him for two hits to start the fifth. Hanchar left the game in the inning, allowing four hits and struck out four.
LSU answered with a run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Kramer Robertson and tied it up in the sixth with a two-out rally. The Tigers singled twice off of Alex Earnestine and evened the score at 2-all on a base hit by pinch hitter Antoine Duplantis.
In the seventh, LSU took the lead with three straight singles, the last by Greg Deichmann, putting the score at 3-2.
Lee Clark singled up the middle in the ninth for the Colonels with one down, but the next two batters were retired to end the game. One of the outs came off the bat of
Gavin Wehby, who flied out to the warning track in left field to snap his four-game hitting streak.
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Kyle Craft (0-1) took the loss for the Colonels, allowing an earned run on five hits in 2.1 innings on the mound.
LSU was led on offense by Beau Jordan, who was 3-for-3 with a double. Zack Hess lasted 4.2 innings for the Tigers and struck out four. Todd Peterson earned the win with an inning of work out of the bullpen, which combined to limit Nicholls to the lone hit in the ninth.
UP NEXT
Nicholls will have a four-game home stand before the start of conference play, beginning with a Thursday night (March 2) matchup with West Virginia. First pitch at Ray E. Didier Field is scheduled for 6 p.m.
