GAMETHREAD: Baseball vs. Southern, 6:30pm, SECN+

As Coach Paul Mainieri mentioned in Sunday’s postgame, the Tigers are now halfway through a 10-games-in-13-days stretch to close out the pre-conference season. Another double barrel midweek slate begins tonight in The Box against our neighbors on the bluff, the Southern Jaguars. It’s also Roger Cador Night and there will be a small ceremony to honor the recently retired coach and Mainieri’s good friend. There should be some interesting new regarding LSU’s starter for Wednesday’s game, but for tonight Jr. RHP Cam Sanders (0-0, 11.25 ERA, 4.0 IP, 5 BB, 8 SO) will be on the mound. Southern has not announced a starter.

The Southern Jaguars (4-7 , 1-2 in SWAC) are off to a rough start under first year head coach Kerrick Jackson. As mentioned, Roger Cador retired at the end of last season after 33 years of running the Jaguars baseball program. He left with 14 conference titles and a 913-597-1 career record, all at Southern. Cador has also been a leader in MLBs efforts to increase baseball participation among African-Americans and he helped organize the now annual Urban Invitational Tournament. Southern has wins over Grambling and Alcorn in out of conference games, but dropped their first conference series last weekend to ARK-PB, run-ruling the Saturday game 12-1, but dropping Friday and Sunday in identical 5-6 losses. On an interesting note, Southern has yet to play a home game this year, hosting Alcorn in a game at BREC’s Goldsby Field due to maintenance issues at their home park. Some notes on Southern from LSU’s release:

· Southern is hitting .281 this season with 20 doubles, three triples, three homers and 30 steals in 41 attempts.

· Freshman infielder Zavier Moore is hitting .343 on the year and has a team-high 10 RBI; both freshman outfielder Michael Wright (.410) and junior infielder Tyler LaPorte (.405) are hitting over .400.