BATON ROUGE, La. (February 21, 2013)—No. 2 LSU was on the ropes twice Thursday night against BYU’s baseball team, but escaped with a 6-5 victory.

Raph Rhymes’ walk-off, one-out single to deep left field snared the Tiger lead for the third time against BYU at Alex Box Stadium.  The Cougars (2-3) were two outs away from the victory with reliever Matt Milke on the mound seeking his first save of the season. LSU improves to 5-0.

Jaycob Brugman had the big bat for BYU with an RBI-double in the eighth to reclaim the lead at 5-4.  That left-field double with one out, scored Hayden Nielsen who had two singles in the game.
Brugman also belted the first pitch to him from Aaron Nola in the third, delivering a three-run homer over the right-centerfield fence for a 4-1 lead. Jacob Hannemann scored BYU’s first run that inning off a single by Adam Law.

“I tweaked the lineup a bit, moving Brugman to the four-hole where he did a great job,” said BYU head coach Mike Littlewood. “Give LSU credit, they stepped up when they needed to, but the way we were playing tonight we could have beaten anyone in the country.”

LSU jumped out to an initial 1-0 advantage from a lead-off homer by Mason Katz in the second inning.

The Tigers closed that margin to 4-3 from a pair of runs in the bottom of the third frame.

Cougar right-hander Desmond Poulson was replaced by submariner Derek Speigner, who started the sixth inning with a 4-3 lead. Poulson threw five complete innings, surrendering six hits, three walks and striking out a pair of Tigers.

Speigner and company came to Poulson’s defense in that sixth inning when Dakota Hernandez threw out JaCoby Jones trying to steal third. Poulson was removed as the pitcher of record when LSU tied the game at four-all in the seventh when the ball barely dropped fair on the left-field line for an RBI-double.

“We put pressure on them all night and came out aggressively,” said Littlewood. “I felt good with our mentality and was happy with our approach, but we need to find a way to finish games and do a better job putting the pressure on every single inning. We are taking baby steps to be where we want to be and are trying to find ourselves on the pitching side.”

The Cougars next play Southeastern Louisiana in a pair of games Friday and Saturday at 1 p.m. CST before a rematch at LSU on Saturday evening at 6 p.m CST.

No. 2 LSU hosts BYU baseball in two of four Cougar games this week in Baton Rouge, La., starting Thursday.

The second-ranked Tigers (3-0) play Tuesday evening against Lamar before hosting the Cougars (2-2), concluding with a game on Saturday evening. Sandwiched between those games are Friday and Saturday afternoon contests against Southeastern Louisiana (3-0),  also at heralded Alex Box Stadium (10,326).

“The whole team is excited to be playing in this venue and atmosphere,” said BYU coach Mike Littlewood. “We have told them to enjoy the experience, but that it’s still just baseball and not to be overwhelmed.”

Leading the way for the Cougars are three of their team that were named last week to the Brooks Wallace Classic all-tournament team, Desmond Poulson, Adam Law and Jaycob Brugman.  Poulson was also named West Coast Conference pitcher of the week by the College Sports Madness website for his nine-inning, 10-strikeout, 119-pitch shutout against Northern Colorado in the season opener.

Poulson (1-0, 0.00) will start on the mound on Thursday at 6:30 p.m., CST.  On Friday, Adam Miller (0-1, 7.20) will be BYU’s starting pitcher against Southeastern Louisiana at 1 p.m.  Jeff Barker (1-0, 1.50) gets the nod for Saturday afternoon’s tilt and lefty Mark Anderson (0-0, 4.50) faces LSU in the rematch that evening at 6 p.m.

Cougars Brennon Anderson and Hayden Nielsen were other bright spots last weekend at second base and shortstop.  That freshmen infield tandem turned most of BYU’s six double plays, combining for 26 assists.  Anderson had one of BYU’s game-winning RBI from his two-run double and a triple in a 5-3 victory over Northern Illinois.

Following the trip to Louisiana, the Cougars next play at Seattle University Feb. 26-27.