No. 2 Warrior Baseball Opens 2023 with Shutout of No. 4 LSUS

LAKE MYRTLE, Fla. – Second-ranked LC State Baseball earned its first season-opening shutout victory on the road in program history on Thursday with a 6-0 win over No. 4 LSU Shreveport (La.). The Warriors have notched shutouts in four season-openers, with the previous three coming at Harris Field.

Trevin Hope was stellar in his first start, and Nick Seamons gave LC State an extra three-run cushion with a homer in the eighth. Greg Blackman tossed the final three innings to preserve the shutout and earn the save.

“Good way to start the 2023 season,” Head Coach Jake Taylor said. “Overall, offensively we competed fairly well in the box for our first game and ended up doing all of our damage with two outs. Trevin was dominant on the mound and GT (Blackman) closed the door in the final three innings. Tomorrow is a big day.”

Hope had the ball in the season opener and worked a scoreless inning to get the game started.

Isaiah Thomas got his Warrior career started with a double down the left field line and scored the first run of the season on an RBI-single off the bat of Charlie Updegrave to put LC up 1-0 after one inning.

Hope ended a 1-2-3 top of the second with a strikeout, and began three-up, three-down third in the same fashion.

The Warriors added to the lead in the fifth and sixth innings with a run in each. Nick Seamons tallied a two-out triple in the fifth and came around to score on a base hit by Pu’ukani De Sa. LC scratched its third run across without a hit in the sixth. Updegrave drew a leadoff walk and Noah Weintraub was reached on an error as a pinch hitter. Back-to-back walks to Carter Booth and Isaac Haws made it 3-0 Warriors.

Greg Blackman took over on the mound in relief of Hope in the seventh and struck out a batter. Catcher Sam Olsson ended the inning when he cut down a runner trying to take second. Blackman added two more strikeouts to end the top of the eighth.

A three-run blast by Seamons doubled the LC State advantage in the bottom of the eighth. Dominic Signorelli and Booth notched a pair of singles and Seamons came to the plate with two outs. The junior launched a two-strike pitch for the first Warrior home run of the season to make it 6-0.

Blackman closed out the game in the ninth for his first save of the season.

Hope earned his first win as a Warrior after tossing six shutout innings. He fanned four without walking a batter. Blackman struck out three in his three innings.

Seamons led the offense with two hits, a triple and a home run. He knocked in three runs and scored two.