While Zack Hess didn’t start in Tuesday’s matchup against the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns (19-13-1), he had a major hand in the LSU Tigers (22-11) third straight victory at the Shrine on Airline for the Wally Pontiff Jr. Classic.
The freshman was one of eight pitchers used in the Jack Wholestaff approach that Paul Mainieri has used during these midweek matchups and ended up being a key role in the late innings in holding the Cajuns back. Hess ended up striking out four of the six batters he faced in one and two-thirds innings of work to help the Tigers hold on to win 3-2.
LSU took the lead in the bottom of the fourth with Nick Coomes getting Zach Watson across safely with an RBI single through the left side. A couple of batters later, Kramer Robertson got his only hit of the night and made it count with a two-run single up the middle to make it 3-0.
The Cajuns responded in the top of the fifth with Handsome Monica hitting an RBI double to left field to cut the lead in half. Brad Antchak followed that up with an RBI single to score Todd Lott. Monica tried to tie things up when he was signaled home, but was tagged out at the plate by Papierski.
The Cajuns kept it competitive, getting runners on third in the sixth and seventh innings but came up empty both times.
Todd Peterson improved to 2-1 on the year allowing one hit, walking one, and striking out one in two innings of work. Hunter Newman got his fourth save striking out one batter in his lone inning of work.
Jack Burk dropped to 2-4 allowing three runs off of eight hits, walked two, and struck out five in six innings of work.
Both teams will return to their respective home ballparks on Thursday with in-conference matchups. The Cajuns will have Arkansas State (12-20) with first pitch set for 6 pm while the Tigers will host Ole Miss (17-6) with first pitch set for 6:30 pm.
-Clint Domingue