BATON ROUGE - No. 1 LSU defeats the Missouri Tigers 12-5 to open SEC play Friday night.

After falling behind 2-0 in the top of the second inning, LSU tied things up with a Luis Hernandez two-run homerun.

The scoring party continued for the home Tigers in the fourth inning. With the bases loaded, freshman Derek Curiel tripled to right field to clear the bases and take the lead 5-2.

In the sixth inning with LSU leading 7-2, Jake Brown doubled to left field to score two more runners.

Missouri tried to fight back with back-to-back homeruns to trail LSU 9-5.

LSU sealed the deal in the eighth inning with a Steven Milam two-run homerun.

Pitcher Kade Anderson got the start on the mound. He pitched 6.1 innings and struck out 11 batters.

LSU will face Missouri again at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

The Tigers have won 12 straight games while hitting .361 as a team with 34 doubles, one triple, 23 homers and 135 runs during that stretch. 

LSU is coming off an 18-4 midweek victory over Xavier, where the team scored seven runs in the first inning, three in the second, and seven in the third to take a 17-0 lead.

Missouri is 8-8 on the year and led by head coach Kerrick Jackson, who is in his second year at the helm of the program. Jackson was Southern University’s head coach from 2018 to 2020 and led the Jaguars to a berth in the 2019 NCAA Tournament.

LSU has a 20-4 all-time record versus Missouri, which includes the two teams' most recent meeting last season in Columbia when LSU won two of three games. 

First pitch between LSU and Missouri is set for 4:30 p.m. on Friday and will air on SEC Network+