Competitive character and Ethan Frey steps up: 5 takeaways from LSU's series with Florida BY KOKI RILEY | Staff writer The Tigers had a two-run lead heading into the eighth inning in Saturday's second game of their three-game series against Florida, but surrendered a run in the eighth and ninth to give up the lead and eventually lose the game 6-4 in 11 innings. Matters wouldn't get any better for LSU the next day either. The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning Sunday but allowed six runs in the fifth in what turned into an embarrassing 12-2 defeat in eight innings. LSU won the first game of the series in impressive fashion on Friday, 6-1. But overall it was another difficult weekend in Southeastern Conference play for the Tigers (19-6, 2-4). Here are five takeaways from LSU's second series loss against SEC competition in two tries. Competitive character LSU coach Jay Johnson spent a chunk of his postgame press conference Sunday talking about his teams competitive character, or lack thereof. Win or lose, he wanted to see his team compete and respond from Saturday's heartbreaking loss, a night where the Tigers were an out away from winning the game up 4-3 in the ninth inning and a pitch away from maintaining a two-run lead in the eighth. But LSU did not respond well to Johnson's call on Sunday. After LSU ran into adversity in the fifth inning, falling behind 6-1, the Tigers completely fell apart. They scored just once more and gave up six more runs on four homers over the next three innings enroute to getting run-ruled. "When you go through tough times the competitive character gets tested. And we're going to need to elevate our our grade on that test," Johnson said.
