HOUSTON, Texas — No. 1 Texas Baseball defeated No. 7 LSU, 6-1, in front of a sold-out crowd of 24,787 on Saturday night in the Shriner’s Children’s College Classic at Minute Maid Park.
The Longhorns (11-0) will close out the tournament against UCLA on Sunday at 3 p.m.
Tristan Stevens was brilliant, pitching seven shutout innings and striking out seven batters to pick up his third win of the season. Stevens had huge inning-ending strikeouts to work out of trouble in the third and sixth innings and got a groundout to strand two runners in the seventh.
Douglas Hodo III went 2-for-4 with a three-run homer in the second inning and Murphy Stehly was 2-for-4 with a solo homer in the eighth inning.
The Longhorns jumped all over the Tigers with a four-run second inning. Silas Ardoin started the inning with a double off the wall in center field before Trey Faltine was intentionally walked with two outs. Dylan Campbell legged out an infield single that was thrown away to allow the first run to score.
Hodo provided the big blow, launching his first home run of the season, a three-run shot out to left field to make the score 4-0.
No. 1 Texas added an unearned run in the top of the seventh inning to extend the lead to 5-0. Hodo walked, advanced to second on a balk, moved to third on a deep fly ball and scored on an error.
Stehly launched his solo homer in the eighth inning to extend the Longhorns lead to 6-0.
LSU scored an unearned run in the eighth inning but Luke Harrison was able to come out of the bullpen and get a strikeout to leave the bases loaded. The freshman lefthander then finished the game to earn his second save of the season.