BATON ROUGE - The 14th ranked LSU Tigers showed the unranked Florida Gators who the King of the South is in college baseball. The Tigers tore up Gators starter Jack Leftwich enroute to an 11-2 win to take a crucial SEC series.

“I told the guys last night that tomorrow is a very pivotal game in our season,” Mainieri said. “If we really want to be a contender for the SEC Championship, we had to win this series."

LSU scored nine runs in the first three innings. Gators right-hander Jack Leftwich was tagged for five hits, six runs in just inning of work. Short stop Josh Smith had a monster day at the plate, he was 3-4 with a home run, two doubles and three RBI.

Eric Walker gladly took all the run support, he limited Florida to two runs on six hits with five strikeouts over 5.2 innings of work. His only mistake came on a belt-high fastball to Cory Acton which resulted in a two-run bomb over the right field wall.

“I just got back to basics,” Walker said. “When my stuff has clicked this year, I think I’ve been more confident. I just feel more comfortable in myself to let it rip. The stuff was a lot better today and the results just follow.” 

Mainieri elected to bring Zack Hess out of the bullpen instead of giving him the weekend off. He struck out three over 2.1 scoreless innings. Hess was scratched from Thursday nights game one start after suffering a groin injury last weekend against Missouri.

The Tigers will return to action on Tuesday night against Lamar. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.

There's nothing better than a series W at The Box!

Check out the highlights of the rubber match win against Florida! #GeauxTigers ??

??: https://t.co/Tmthej9hXW pic.twitter.com/cxIiSebwgU

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) April 20, 2019