Tim Fletcher Show: LSU Defeats Arkansas on Six Arkansas Errors

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LSU joined Texas A&M as the only unbeaten teams remaining after three rounds of the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament with a 10-5 win over Arkansas late Thursday night.

After facing deficits in 11 of their last 14 games, the Tigers flipped the script and jumped on the Razorbacks early, pushing across four runs in the top of the first inning. The Hogs helped the Tigers cause with a pair of errors and a wild pitch that allowed three of the four runs to score. Chris Chinea chased Andrew Stevenson home for the fourth and final run.

The hits kept coming in the second inning, with Mark Laird doubling in a run and Alex Bregman knocking in one with a base hit, the first of three RBI for Bregman in the game. Arkansas carved into the six-run deficit with a four-run effort in their half of the second inning ending Austin Bain's night on the mound for LSU.

A pair of runs in the fourth and seventh innings pushed the LSU lead back to a comfortable margin with Paul Mainieri's bullpen closing the door for the second straight game. Russell Reynolds replaced Bain and earned the win with 3.1 innings of shutout relief. In all, the LSU bullpen tossed 7.1 innings giving up just four hits and one run.

The win gives LSU a day off in Hoover, Alabama. They await the survivor of this afternoon's elimination game pitting Arkansas and Florida against each other.

Northwestern State will be on the diamond bright and early again today, facing Central Arkansas in an elimination game in the Southland Conference baseball tournament.

Whatever the the Demons had for breakfast yesterday will probably be on the menu again today. NSU woke up ready to go Thursday, knocking off Nicholls State in a 9:00 a.m. game 4-3 to move into today's game.

The Demons scored all four of their runs in the fifth inning. David Fry led off with a double, followed by a C.J. Webster single. Garrett Logan plated Fry with a base hit. The next run came on a Joel Atkinson sacrifice fly. On the play, Nicholls tried to catch Kwan Adkins advancing to second but the throw got away, allowing Logan to race home with the third run of the inning. Cort Brinson finished off the rally with an infield RBI single.

Josh Oller survived a shaky start to earn his 10th win of the season---the first 10-game winner for the Demons in 11 seasons.

Louisiana Tech and Grambling each released football schedules on Thursday.

The Bulldogs announced changes to their 2016 schedule, including a season opener in Fayetteville against the Arkansas Razorbacks. Two weeks later, the Bulldogs will travel to Lubbock to face Texas Tech. The other change in the non-conference schedule features a trip on October 15th to New England to face UMass in Gillette Stadium, the home of the Super Bowl Champion, New England Patriots.

Grambling's upcoming football season features a trip to face Sonny Dykes and the Cal Bears in the season opener on September 5th. The G-Men only play three games in Eddie Robinson Stadium this year, the first of which takes place on September 12th against Bethune-Cookman.

Golden State leads Houston 2-0 in their NBA Western Conference Finals series after escaping with a 99-98 win in Oakland last night.

James Harden turned in yet another monster night with 38 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists, but it was his second turnover of the night, on the game's final possession that sealed the Rockets fate. Double-teamed by Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Harden lost the ball as the clock ticked down to zeroes.

Curry led the Warriors with 33 points.

Categories: Shreveport News