The game was all but over.
Junior Ethan Frey’s ground ball to third base figured to be the first out of the ninth inning. It was a routine play as LSU trailed 3-0 and had just three hits all Friday evening and early Saturday morning against Tennessee.
But third baseman Dean Curley made a poor throw to first base, allowing Frey to reach on an error before Curley made a second error two batters later. Redshirt junior Tanner Reaves then walked to load the bases, suddenly putting the go-ahead run at the plate with two outs.
Four batters later, junior LSU slugger Jared Jones was mobbed by teammates after hitting a walk-off, three-run home as the No. 7 Tigers scored six times in the inning to capture a 6-3 victory over No. 6 Tennessee at Alex Box Stadium.
The comeback was just the third time LSU had ever rallied from a 3-plus run deficit after getting shut out through the first eight innings.
“Tonight was awesome,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said. “Proud of the team.”
Following Reaves’ walk, fifth-year senior pinch-hitter Dalton Beck came up with a clutch single up the middle that drove in two runs and cut the LSU deficit to one. It was just his second hit of the season.
“He hit 18 home runs last year at Incarnate Word and wanted to come here,” Johnson said. “In a sense, he almost kind of recruited us when he went in the portal and then went and did a billion summer classes to be transfer eligible as a fifth-year guy, and then has not one second complained about being a role player on this team.”
The Tigers were down to their final strike after Beck’s single, but freshman Derek Curiel rapped a game-tying single past the diving first baseman to send the remaining LSU (35-8, 13-6 SEC) faithful into a frenzy.
Jones ended the game four pitches later. He blasted a 452-foot home run over the batter’s eye in center field to hand LSU the 1-0 lead in the series.
“It was a 1-2 count. Coach just likes to talk about fighting, hitting the ball hard and low through the middle of the field,” Jones said. “And that was kind of my main goal with two strikes.
“Just battle. The winning run was on third so a single would have done the job. Just get a fastball in the zone and don’t miss it.”
Before the memorable night began, everyone had to wait. A 205-minute weather delay pushed the first pitch from 6:30 p.m. to 9:55 p.m. The game lasted three hours and 22 minutes and didn’t conclude until 1:17 a.m.
“That’s like the fifth or sixth time this year that we’ve kind of just sat around at the field for a couple hours,” Jones said, “but we’ve got a lot of things to do here to keep us entertained.”
The night started out as a classic pitcher’s duel between LSU sophomore left-hander Kade Anderson and Tennessee left-handed ace Liam Doyle. They traded zeroes until the sixth inning, when Tennessee third baseman Andrew Fischer singled home second baseman Gavin Kilen with nobody out.
Anderson lasted until the eighth inning, allowing just six hits and striking out 11 batters. He exited for junior right-hander Zac Cowan after a one-out double from Fischer.
“I was able to land my all off-speed better this week and kind of really locate my fastball,” Anderson said. “So it kind of gave me a little more wiggle room to get through the third time through the order.”
But Tennessee (34-8, 12-7) extended its lead against Cowan. A wild pitch allowed Fischer to advance to third base before he eventually scored on a single that snuck through a drawn-in LSU infield.
The base hit gave Tennessee a 2-0 lead in the eighth.
Junior right-hander Jacob Mayers pitched the ninth inning, replacing Cowan after he threw 13 pitches. Mayers forced a groundout and a fly out before surrendering a run-scoring double to Kilen that extended the Vols’ lead to three.
“There’s a couple of big leaguers in that lineup for sure,” Johnson said.
LSU didn’t get its first hit until the sixth inning when Jones singled up the middle with two outs. The only hitters who reached through the first 5⅔ innings was Curiel and Jones — they both walked.
The Tigers were unable to run Doyle out of the game until the seventh inning after he walked sophomore Jake Brown with two outs. Senior Josh Pearson hit a single of right-hander Tanner Franklin immediately after Doyle exited the game, but sophomore Ashton Larson harmlessly flew out to left field to end LSU’s greatest offensive threat of the night to that point.
Doyle, a junior, finished his night with just one hit allowed and three walks in 6⅔ innings. He only had six strikeouts but forced eight fly outs and six ground outs.
“The ball explodes up and away from a righty, and ironically he can do it to a lefty too,” Johnson said. “And there’s three different off-speed offerings, and it just it makes it really hard to square up.
“I thought we had a very good plan against him, and the only part of it we really executed was we made him work.”
LSU and Tennessee square off for Game 2 of the series on Saturday. First pitch from Alex Box Stadium is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be avaiable to watch on ESPNU.
