LSU will attempt to tie its longest winning streak of the season Friday at Tennessee.
The No. 11 Tigers (33-16, 14-10) return to SEC play as winners of their past five with this weekend’s games scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday, 12 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
Follow live updates of the first contest in the comments stream below.
“Momentum’s huge at this point in the season,” junior catcher Jordan Romero said. “We only have (seven) games left in the season and then SEC tournament and postseason play, so at this point, you’ve gotta keep momentum rolling. Hopefully we do that.”
The Volunteers (26-23, 7-17) are tied at the bottom of the conference standings with Arkansas (26-22, 7-17) and Missouri (24-25, 7-17), the two league rivals LSU has swept this season.
But coach Paul Mainieri and company insisted this weekend will prove no easy task.
“When I look at an SEC schedule, you don’t really pick out weekends that you think you’re gonna win because every single team has a chance to beat you every single weekend,” sophomore pitcher Alex Lange said. “If you go out and you start overlooking teams or you say, ‘This team’s 7-17 or 8-16,’ then that’s when they go 11-16 and you drop three.
“Every team has a chance to beat everybody in this league. That’s what’s so awesome about this league. But if we come out and play our style of baseball, I’m gonna be happy with the results.”
The Tigers trailed in four of the six games against Arkansas an Missouri and won three of the contests by either one or two runs.
The Volunteers meanwhile caught everyone’s attention this past weekend with a 5-2 defeat of No. 1 Florida in the middle game of the teams’ series.
“My impressions of Tennessee are I can’t really understand why they have the record they have,” Mainieri said. “If you look at them statistically on paper and you watch them in the games, they’ve got a very, very talented team — a team talented enough to whip Florida, the No. 1 team in the country the other day.
“They’ve got certainly two left-handed pitchers, starting pitchers, that are really good, (Aaron) Soto and (Zach) Warren, and they’ve got a really good relief pitcher, left-handed pitcher, (Andy) Cox. They’ve got another pitcher (Will) Neely that really knows how to pitch. They’ve got an infielder (Nick) Senzel that’s gonna be a top-10 pick — maybe a top-five pick. Some people have talked about taking him second or third in the country. I mean, that’s a really good ball player. They have a really good heart of the order.”
The Volunteers fall to No. 5 in the SEC, just behind the Tigers, in team batting average at .291 to LSU’s .296 — led by five players batting better than .300.
Senzel has batted .343 this season with eight home runs and 53 RBIs — among the league leaders in all three categories.
Vincent Jackson and Derek Lance have led the team with .348 and .347 averages, respectively, with Jackson’s seven home runs and 50 RBIs not far behind Senzel’s numbers in those regards.
Jordan Rodgers has also batted .289 with four home runs and 53 RBIs.
Tennessee’s team ERA of 3.91 is No. 9 in the league, one spot ahead of LSU’s 4.05.
The Tigers’ sophomore righty Lange (6-3, 4.02 ERA, 80.2 IP, 35 BB, 88 SO) and the Volunteers’ freshman righty Neely (1-2, 4.46 ERA, 36.1 IP, 15 BB, 22 SO) are scheduled to start on the mound in Friday’s matchup, which will be broadcast online via SECNetwork+.
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Jerit Roser can be reached at Jroser@nola.com or 504.826.3405.
