Slumping LSU suffers another home loss, 6-1 to Sacramento State
Published 10:55 pm Sunday, March 8, 2026
By Scooter Hobbs
American Press
This is no way for college baseball’s defending national champions to act.
LSU thought it had turned things around Friday night with a rout of Sacramento State.
It was a false alarm against a team that came to Baton Rouge with a 3-9 record.
LSU’s bats went back into the deep freeze for the remainder of the weekend and Sacramento State pitching dominated the final two games, capped by a 6-1 victory over the struggling Tigers Sunday night.
“Credit to them,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said, “and we need to play better.”
Mostly, hit better. The Tigers hit a lot of hard balls Sunday, but managed only six hits while the Hornets’ out field turned into vacuum clearners.
“The take is our best friend right now,” Johnson said. “More good is happening when we don’t swing than when we do swing.”
After an 8-0 start, the Tigers are now 4-5 since then, a skid that began with a 7-6 loss to McNeese on Feb. 24.
They have one more non-conference game, Tuesday against Creighton, before opening SEC play at Vanderbilt this weekend.
As usual during the slump, LSU pitching was fine. But William Schmidt (3-1) took the loss despite striking out eight with no walks in 5 2/3 innings.
“It was a very unlucky loss for William in the sense that we didn’t support him offensively,” Johnson said.
LSU’s defense was spotty in some key moments, too.
The Hornets scored two runs in the third, the first when leftfielder Mason Braun misjudged a fly ball into an RBI double, then another when catcher Cade Arrambide couldn’t handle a third strike to Erick Dessens. Forced to throw to first to get the third out, instead his throw hit the streaking Dessens in the helmet to allow another run to score.
“That’s a tough one,” Johnson said. “I mean, like I’m not sure how that ball got over Mason’s head right there. He was playing pretty deep. If we make that play, there is no two runs right there.
“We could probably manage the end of his outing a little differently because that would have been a shorter inning, but that’s how it goes, and credit their guy.”
The Tigers, on the other hand, did not score until getting their lone run in the seventh —in Saturday’s 5-4 loss, they didn’t score until the eighth.
Schmidt got the first two outs to start the sixth before giving up back to back singles. He was replaced by Cooper Williams, who promptly hit the only batter he faced to load the bases.
LSU turned to Gavin Guidry, who walked in a run — only his second walk of the season — and gave up a 2-run single to up the Hornets’ lead to 5-0.
