JOURNAL SPORTS
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Ryan Jennings carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning Thursday as No. 2 seeded Louisiana Tech moved into the Conference USA Tournament semifinals with a 7-2 victory over No. 3 seed Old Dominion.
The Bulldogs get today off and will meet the survivor of today’s elimination game between ODU and No. 7 Charlotte at 9 a.m. Saturday.
Tech (40-18) topped ODU (39-16) while Taylor Young and Adarius Myers rack up multi-hit games.
Jennings threw seven innings and allowed two hits, no runs, two walks and notched 10 strikeouts.
The Bulldogs moved up 3-0 on a sacrifice fly and Young’s two-out, two-run single in the second inning.
Tech catcher Jorge Corona smoked a ground-rule double in the fourth, bringing home Byrd High product Steele Netterville, who led off with a two-bagger.
In the sixth with two outs and no one on, Jackson Lancaster reached on an infield single. The Bulldogs ripped four consecutive singles and Wade Elliott, Young and Philip Matulia all drove in runs to extend the Tech lead to 7-0.
Kyle Crigger tossed the final two innings, losing the shutout with two out in the ninth on a two-run homer. The Bulldogs pitching staff had gone 17.2 innings of shutout ball to begin the tournament (the longest stretch this season).
LSU 11, KENTUCKY 6: Freshman Josh Pearson raised his season’s batting average nearly 30 points with a 5-for-5 night including a double and a towering two-run homer as the Tigers maintained their offensive surge from last weekend’s sweep of Vanderbilt, and held off the Wildcats early this morning.
In a game that started at 9:41 in Birmingham at the rain-delayed Southeastern Conference Tournament, LSU answered a two-run Kentucky second with three in the third, added three more in the fifth and in the sixth to take command. Pearson’s two-run shot came in the seventh.
Kentucky got a three-run homer in the eighth inning to wake up the Wildcats, but LSU (38-18) closed out UK (31-25) at 1:23 a.m. and advanced to meet No. 1 Tennessee in the final tonight at soggy Hoover Met.
It was the 32nd SEC Tournament game to finish after midnight
Ma’Khail Hilliard allowed just four hits and struck out six while keeping Kentucky quiet in his six-inning starting assignment.
GRAMBLING: After a rain day Thursday, the Tigers play an elimination-round game at noon today in Birmingham in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament, facing the loser of a winner’s bracket contest at 9 a.m. between Prairie View and Jackson State.
ULM: The Warhawks square off at 7:30 tonight with 15th-ranked Texas State, the Sun Belt’s top seed, in what has been trimmed to a single-elimination tournament due to weather delays. ULM beat Georgia State in a Tuesday contest to stay alive in Mobile, Ala.
Photo courtesy of Conference USA