Tigers impressive in season-opening win

No. 2 LSU opened the 2025 season with a resounding x-x victory over Purdue Fort-Wayne Friday afternoon to open the season at Alex Box Stadium. 

The Tigers (1-0) wasted no time offensively, pushing across five runs in their first-at bat.  Auburn transfer Chris Stanfield led off the inning with a triple and scored when Jared Jones reached on an error. After a walk to Josh Pearson, another newcomer, Utah Valley transfer Daniel Dickinson drove in Jones and Pearson to make it 4-0. Jake Brown followed with a single, stole second base and would come around to score on a RBI single by Steven Milam. 

Dickinson’s hot start continued an inning later with a two-run double to make it 7-0. Starting at second base for LSU Friday afternoon, the junior infielder finished his first game at Alex Box Stadium 3 for 4 with five runs driven in.

“It’s good to just get to a gameday,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson said. “I don’t want to go backwards, but the last game we played (sub-regional loss to North Carolina) was one of the toughest losses of my career. There is so much that goes into this game than what people see out on the field. Running a program, recruiting and development and the player taking the field that I have been recruiting since he was in seventh grade. It was pretty cool.

“It was just good to see our team out there competing with good poise. We talked about not trying to do too much on Opening Day and staying with the gameplan. I thought they did a pretty good job of that.”

Admitting he was a little apprehensive heading into the game, Dickinson said his first game at Alex Box Stadium definitely lived up to expectations. 

“It was electric,” Dickinson said. “I was warming up and the fans were rolling in and it was just a dream come true. Playing here was a dream that I had since I was a little kid.”

Sophomore left-hander Kade Anderson started on the mound for LSU and was impressive, throwing five shutout innings, scattering four hits, striking out eight and walking only one. 

Anderson’s lone trouble of the afternoon in the fourth inning. After giving up back-to-back singles to Camden Karczewski and Justin Osterhouse, Anderson struck out Kevin Hall, forced a Drew Helton fly out and struck out Jackson Micheels to thwart the threat. 

Freshman right-hander Casan Evans relieved Anderson with two innings of shutout baseball, striking out four and Jacob Mayers struck out a pair in an inning of relief. Cooper Williams finished off the game with a scoreless ninth inning. 

“I thought we were able to manage the workload and that helped me stretch out to five innings,” Anderson said. “Being able to conserve pitches is going to be able to help me in the long run. I’m going into every inning trying to put up a zero and allow our offense to score runs.”