LSU Falls to Auburn, 6-4

 Da Boot Sports
4/2/2022
By: Terrill J. Weil


   BATON ROUGE, LA - On a beautiful day in Baton Rouge, the LSU Tigers and the Auburn Tigers would take to the diamond in Alex Box Stadium/Skip Bertman Field to play the rubber match of their three game series on Saturday afternoon. 
   Unfortunately it would be the Tigers from Auburn who would escape with the conference series win as they defeated LSU 6-4.

   Trailing 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Tiger bats finally came to life as the LSU hitters finally got to Joseph Gonzalez, who pitched six solid innings, plating two runs to cut the lead to 4-3, but ended up leaving the bases loaded.  

   “Gonzalez did a nice job sinking the ball at the bottom of the zone,” said LSU coach Jay Johnson. “He got some key outs and some contact outs when he was in trouble. I’ll give him credit, but I think we should have done a better job with the plan we had in place. This is one of the first times this season our offense hasn’t gotten the job done.”
 
   Auburn was able to respond in the eight inning as a huge error by short stop Cade Doughty lead to two runs, extending the lead to 6-3. 

   Tre' Morgan hit a solo homerun in the bottom of the eight inning cutting the lead to 6-4, but Auburn pitcher Blake Burkhalter slammed the door on the LSU batters to capture the win for the Tigers. 

   “Mistakes are made in a college baseball game, and good teams kick the door in,” Johnson said. “If we want to be a great team, we can’t make as many mistakes, and we have to kick the door in.”
   
   Samuel Dutton got the start for the Tigers until Auburn chased him in the third inning after scoring their second run of the game to regain the lead, 2-1. Dutton left the contest after allowing two runs on four hits, with three strikeouts and two base-on-balls before Devon Fontenot entered the game in relief. 
   The Tigers would use Riley Cooper, Paul Gervase in middle relief before Eric Reyzelman would take the bump to finish the game. 

   Fontenot had little success, lasting only one inning as he allowed Auburn to increase their lead in the top of the fifth on a two run homer by Sonny DiChiara.
   Johnson would bring Riley Cooper out of the bullpen to try and slow down the Auburn bats. Fontenot left the game
after surrendering two runs on one hit while issuing one walk. 
   Cooper entered the game with Auburn up 4-1 in the fifth with two outs and quickly got the Tigers back into the dugout.

   The Tigers were lead at the plate by Tre' Morgan and Jacob Berry. Morgan finished with three hits, two RBIs, scored twice including a solo homerun while Berry went three for four with one RBI and scoring one run. 

   With the loss LSU falls to 19-9 overall and 4-5 in SEC play.

   Up next the Tigers will host Grambling on Tuesday, April 5th at Alex Box. First pitch is set for 6:30 pm CST

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