PRESS RELEASE
BATON ROUGE. – With his third hit of the night, senior outfielder Antoine Duplantis tied Eddy Furniss for the LSU career hits record with 352 hits as the LSU baseball team stormed pat Stony Brook, 17-3 in the opening round of the Baton Rouge Regional Friday night in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.
For the eighth consecutive year, LSU has won its regional opener. The 14-run win is the largest margin of victory in a regional opener since the Tigers opened the 2000 regional opener with a 19-1 win against Jackson State and is the fifth double-digit regional opening victory since 1996 (’97, ’98, ’00, ’08, ’19).
LSU will meet Southern Miss at 6 p.m. CT Saturday in The Box. TV for the game is TBD, and fans can listen to the game on the LSU Sports Radio Network, including 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge.
Freshman Landon Marceaux improved to 5-2 on the season after throwing only 53 pitches in five innings. He limited Stony Brook to two runs—one earned—on seven hits, walked one and struck out three.
Ma’Khail Hilliard was the first Tiger out of the bullpen and he allowed one run on one hit and struck out two in the sixth. Trent Vietmeier made his first appearance back on the mound since May 10 at Arkansas. He, Chase Costello and Rye Gunter combined for the final three innings, blanking the Seawolves after allowing two hits and striking out three.
Right-hander Greg Marino suffered the loss and fell to 5-5 after allowing seven runs—two earned—on three hits, walked three and struck out two in 1.1 innings.
Stony Brook was first on the board in the top of the first inning. First baseman Chris Hamilton singled through the left side and moved to second on a wild pitch before scoring on an error by the shortstop.
The Tigers erupted for five runs on two hits and one error in the bottom of the inning to make it a 5-1 game. With the bases loaded and two outs, first baseman Chris Reid drew a walk before catcher Saul Garza cleared the bases with a double down the right field line. Second baseman followed with a RBI single to center field to round out the five-run first inning.
In the bottom of the second inning with shortstop Josh Smith on second base after a single and a stolen base, Duplantis slapped an RBI single up the middle. With runners in scoring position after a base hit by left fielder Daniel Cabrera, designated hitter Cade Beloso hit a sacrifice fly to left field to bring in Duplantis. Center fielder Zach Watson then hit a moon shot to left field for his sixth home run of the year, a two-run blast, to put the Tigers up 9-1.
Duplantis drove in two runs in the bottom of the third with his single through the right side to extend the LSU lead to 11-1.
With runners on first and second in the fourth, second baseman Brandt Broussard unloaded his first career home run to right field to put LSU up 13-1.
In the top of the fifth inning, center fielder Michael Wilson drove in second baseman Brandon Janofsky on a fielder’s choice.
With the bases in the fifth inning, Watson was hit by a pitch, Reid hit a sacrifice fly and Garza reached on a fielding error, which resulted in three runs for the Tigers to make it a 17-2 game.
The Seawolves finalized the score at 17-3 when left fielder Dylan Resk homered to left field to open the sixth inning.