Gamecocks baseball dominated by LSU Thursday

Coming off of a trio of strong victories over Missouri and Charleston Southern, the tenth-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks baseball team rolled into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with another sweep on their mind.

In their way, however, were the LSU Tigers, who dominated the series opener 5-1 behind a great start from Landon Marceaux.

Marceaux, making his ninth start of the season and fourth as LSU’s ace, pitched a strong seven innings and allowed no runs to score. He struck out twelve Gamecocks while only permitting just three hits plus a walk and hit-by-pitch.

Gamecock starter Thomas Farr had another average outing, pitching five innings, allowing two Tiger runs, registering just three strikeouts and taking the loss. However, both runs came off of a first inning homerun by Gavin Dugas.

LSU pitchers, Marceaux and Devin Fontenot, struck out sixteen Gamecocks. Six South Carolina batters struck out on multiple occasions, and it started at the top of the order with Brady Allen, who was called out on strikes in three of his four at-bats.

Even with his disappointing night at the plate, however, Allen did extend his on-base streak to eleven games with a single in the sixth inning.

Otherwise, offense was hard to come by for the Gamecocks. Joining Allen in the hit column were Colin Burgess and David Mendham, but none of the three could muster multiple hits.

The only South Carolina run came in the ninth inning when they loaded the bases on an error, a walk and a hit-by-pitch before Wes Clarke came around to score on a 5-3 double play.

The Gamecocks (22-10, 8-5 SEC) will once again face the Tigers (21-12, 4-9 SEC) tomorrow at 8 p.m. with Brannon Jordan and AJ Labas, respectively, expected to take the mound. The two teams will complete the series at 3 p.m. on Saturday.