LSU, fresh off another weekend sweep, this time of North Alabama, will have one more game before the start of Southeastern Conference play when the Tigers host Xavier (7-9) tonight.

The Musketeers were swept by Vanderbilt over the weekend.

Then it’s on to SEC play this weekend at home against Missouri.

The Tigers beat UNA 13-2 in a seven-inning, mercy-rule win Friday, then won 6-2 on Saturday and 11-5 on Sunday.

The Tigers (16-1) are ranked No. 1 in the nation by D1Baseball.com, but have plenty of company from their SEC brethren near the top. Tennessee is No. 2, Arkansas No. 3, Georgia is No. 4 and Florida at No. 7 gives the league five of the top seven.

Six more — Texas, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Alabama and Texas A&M — are in the second 10 and No. 25 Auburn puts 12 of the 16 teams in the rankings.

LSU appears to be set with its weekend rotation and will get one of its top relievers, Lake Charles’ Gavin Guidry, back for the SEC’s opening weekend.

Guidry, a former Barbe High two-way star, hasn’t pitched yet this season while recovering from an unspecified mid-body injury.

He was basically the Tigers’ closer the last two seasons, although head coach Jay Johnson has said he wants to experiment with Guidry as a starter.

Johnson said Guidry worked out last weekend with no problems.

LSU’s weekend starters continued to overpower non-conference hitters.

The staff as a whole struck out 43 UNA batters in the 25 innings. The three starters combined to strike out 30 in 18 innings, highlighted by Anthony Eyanson’s 15 Ks in Saturday’s middle game. Zac Cowan relieved Eyanson and struck out five of the seven batters he faced. The 20 strikeouts were the most by LSU this year.

“He was throwing four pitches for strikes, throwing what he wanted to when he wanted to, and changing speeds,” Johnson said of Eyanson, whose 15 strikeouts were the most by an LSU pitcher since Ty Floyd in the opening game of the 2023 College World Series championship series against Florida.

Friday starter Kade Anderson had 11 strikeouts in six innings Friday, while Sunday starter Chase Shores had four.

Shores gave up nine hits and two runs as he worked in and out of trouble for much of his five innings on 94 pitches“That means the pitcher did a good job of executing the most important pitches in the game,” Johnson said.

LSU also brought out the heavy aluminum.

The Tigers went into the weekend with 15 home runs in their first 14 games, but hit 10 in the three games against North Alabama, capped Sunday by the first grand slam of senior Josh Pearson’s career during a six-run sixth inning that put the game away.

It was Pearson’s second home run of the weekend. On Friday he was one of six Tigers to go deep, including his younger brother John. They became the first brothers to homer in the same game since Clay and Will Harris did it against Rice in 2005.

Team leader Jared Jones, who had two home runs in the midweek games against North Dakota State, had two more over the weekend to give him six for the season.
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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com