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LSU baseball: Tigers capture crucial series win against No. 10 Tennessee

By Charlie Hubbard

Gavin Dugas hits a homerun as the LSU Tigers take on the Tennessee Volunteers at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, La. Thursday, March 30, 2023.Lsu Vs Tenn Baseball 8307
Gavin Dugas hits a homerun as the LSU Tigers take on the Tennessee Volunteers at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, La. Thursday, March 30, 2023.Lsu Vs Tenn Baseball 8307 /
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The LSU Tigers baseball team improved to 25-3 and 7-2 in the SEC after sweeping Tennessee. It was an electric weekend at The Box, and we’re here to recap it for you.

LSU’s baseball team entered the weekend on the heels of a top-10 series victory over No. 3 Arkansas. This weekend, the LSU Tigers downed No. 10 Tennessee in one of the season’s most anticipated matchups.

Game One: Pair of top 5 MLB Draft prospects duel from the mound

The headline coming into the opening game of the series was the LSU Tigers’ Paul Skenes vs. Tennessee’s Chase Dollander. Dollander and Skenes are the projected No. 2 and No. 4 picks, respectively, by MLB.com. Suffice it to say, one of the season’s most anticipated matchups lived up to the hype in game one.

Skenes was as dominant as he’s been all season for the LSU Tigers, showing why he should be the No. 1 pitcher in this year’s draft. He threw 12 strikeouts and allowed just one run in 7.0 innings. Dollander, on the other hand, pitched well but not as well as Skenes. He tossed three strikeouts and allowed two runs before being pulled after 4.2 innings.

Both teams were scoreless through the first four innings of the pitchers’ duel. However, Tennessee struck first, plating a run on an RBI single in the fifth to start the scoring. After putting a runner on, Gavin Dugas blasted a two-run moonshot to deep left field to take the LSU Tigers’ first lead of the night.

Neither team would score for the next two innings, but Tennessee knotted the game up in the eighth with another RBI single. Then, the Vols retired LSU’s first pair of batters in the inning. However, The Tigers fought and juiced the bases with Jordan Thompson coming to the plate. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Thompson drove a ball through the right field gap to clear the bases and take a 5-2 lead.

LSU Tigers fans showed out in record numbers for the series-opening game. Such provides perspective on how big of a game the series opener was. The Box was packed, loud, and electric all night. LSU hoped to carry momentum into the second-game of the series.

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