Bats Come Alive Late As Tigers Sweep Hogs, 13-5 04/28/02 Box Score BATON ROUGE -- LSU's offense started slow and finished fast, as LSU scored 12 runs in the fifth through eighth innings and collected a season high 19 hits to overcome a 3-1 deficit and roar to a 13-5 victory in the finale of a three-game Southeastern Conference series Sunday at Alex Box Stadium, giving the Fighting Tigers a much needed sweep. The sweep gives LSU (30-15, 12-8) nine wins in their last 12 conference outings, and nine consecutive wins overall at home. Arkansas (23-18, 7-11) has now lost 11 consecutive games in Baton Rouge dating back to 1996, but has beaten LSU in nine of the last 10 meetings away from Alex Box Stadium. LSU (30-15, 12-8) will play its next seven games away from home, starting with a Tuesday night contest at 6:30 p.m. against New Orleans at Zephyr Field in Metairie in what will be the Tigers' final non-conference outing of 2002. The Tigers resume SEC play next weekend at Tennessee in the first meeting between the Bayou Bengals and the Volunteers since 1999. LSU led early 1-0, but would not lead again until scoring a pair of runs in the sixth inning to recapture a 4-3 edge. Blake Gill led off the sixth with an infield hit, and two batters later, David Raymer also singled to set up Chris Phillips, who laced a base hit past a diving Jeff Fletcher to score Gill with the tying run. Arkansas reliever Scott Roehl got J.C. Holt to hit into a force play for the second out, but he then walked Aaron Hill to load the bases, then issued another free pass to Wally Pontiff to send across the go-ahead run. Roehl would avoid any further damage for the moment by getting Sean Barker to fly to right field. Roehl's relief would be temporary, as LSU would get insurance runs in the seventh on Dustin Hahn's two-run homer to right-center, just out of the reach of a leaping Ryan Fox. The home run was Hahn's first since Feb. 20 at Centenary The Razorbacks had an opportunity to get back in the game in the eighth off of LSU reliever Jake Tompkins. Tompkins gave up a leadoff hit to Andrew Wishy and walked Fletcher. Cody Clark popped up to first, but Tompkins walked Scott Hode to load the bases. Arkansas could not get anything across, though, as Kirk McConnell and Scott Bridges both popped up to end the inning. Tompkins earned the win in relief to improve to 3-0, despite giving up four walks and four hits in 3 2/3 innings. LSU starter Bo Pettit gave up three runs on nine hits and struck out six. LSU would leave no doubt to the game's outcome by scoring seven times on seven hits in the eighth inning, as six different Tigers collected RBI in the frame. Holt would finish 4-for-6, his second four hit game of the season, while Raymer and Gill each went 3-for-5. Every LSU starter had at least one hit and one RBI, while seven of the Tigers' starters scored a run. The Razorbacks, who were shut out 3-0 on Friday by Lane Mestepey and 8-0 on Saturday by Brian Wilson, got on the board for the first time in the series with one out in the second on a solo home run by Michael Connor to tie the game at 1-1. Arkansas starter Gary Hogan Jr. gave up a first inning run to the Tigers on a sacrifice fly by Sean Barker, but he would then handcuff LSU through the next three innings and allow the Razorbacks to grab the lead in the third on Nick Pitts' ground out that plated Hode. Arkansas would extend that lead to 3-1 in the fourth on Clark's RBI single. Hogan would go 4 1/3 innings and give up seven hits and two earned runs. Razorback reliever Scott Woods gave up two runs on three hits in an inning plus and took the loss (5-1). ~I think we hit the nail on the head this weekend~ GEAUX TIGERS!
