Southern baseball dominates defending College World Series champion LSU

The best college sports team in Baton Rouge on Monday night was Southern Jaguars baseball.

Southern went down the road to Alex Box Stadium and knocked off the Tigers 12-7 in a non-conference matchup on a night when the LSU national championship women’s basketball team went down to Iowa in the NCAA Tournament.

Tyler Hawkins led the way for the Jaguars, going 3 for 6, including a 3-run home run that gave Southern a 3-0 lead in the second inning. Ryan Ollison drove in three runs on a bases-clearing double in the fifth inning that extended the advantage to 6-2.

Despite an LSU scoring surge in the middle innings, Southern broke the game open with three runs in the ninth inning to go ahead by five runs.

The win marked the first time Southern beat the Tigers, the defending national champions who were ranked No. 18 in the most recent NCAA Division I baseball poll, for the first time since 2019.