To close out night two of the Astros College Classic, the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns and LSU Tigers battled at Minute Maid Park.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
The first four innings featured two top pitchers controlling the matchup with hitless baseball. Then in the fifth, Louisiana got a hit from Trey LaFleur and couldn’t cash it in.
In the bottom of the fifth, LSU got a base runner after a four-pitch walk put Jake Brown on first. Two batters later, another walk set up Tommy White with two baserunners before he had a single to right field. With the bases loaded, a wild pitch from Andrew Hermann scored LSU’s first run of the game. Later in the inning, Hayden Travinski hit a two-strike, two-run single into left field to increase the Tigers lead to 3-0 in the fifth. Next batter was Jared Jones, who had a long fly ball to the left field scoreboard that was misjudged by Connor Higgs and another run came into score and made it 4-0.
In the top of the sixth, Louisiana got back to back base hits from Bryan Broussard Jr and Kyle DeBarge off of Griffin Herring, who relieved Gage Jump. Then, Duncan Pastore put three runs on the board with a home run to left field.
In the bottom of the seventh, Travinski got a hold of a fastball and took it for a ride to left field for a solo homer and a 5-3 LSU lead.
With two outs in the ninth, Jose Torres hit a full count solo homer off the left field foul pole to make it a 5-4 game. Trey LaFleur then legged out an infield single to put the tying run at first. Justin Loer got John Taylor to strike out looking to end the game and seal it for LSU.
BIG NUMBER: 4
Four runs in the Tigers half of the fifth was enough to overcome a late Cajuns rally in the 5-4 victory over Louisiana.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Hayden Travinski
Travinski powered LSU offensively, starting with a two-run single before hitting a solo home run later in the contest. He finished the night with three RBI.
UP NEXT: Both the Tigers and the Cajuns will return on Sunday to close their weekend in Houston. LSU will battle Texas State at 3:05 while Louisiana will close the tournament with Houston at 7:05.