The Georgia baseball team may have the No. 1 ranking, but it sure didn’t look worthy of it Friday after an 8-4 loss to the No. 5 LSU Tigers at Foley Field.

LSU (22-7, 7-3 SEC) got to Georgia starter Trevor Holder early as catcher Micah Gibbs hit a solo home run over the batter’s eye in deep center and then added four home runs in the third, all via home runs.

Following a double by nine-hole hitter Tyler Hanover and then an error on shortstop Levi Hyams, who dropped a popup in shallow center field to put runners on first and third, Ryan Schimpf belted a three-run home run to deep right. Two batters later, cleanup hitter Sean Ochinko made the score 4-0 with a solo home run into the trees in left field.

Holder (5-2) labored through six innings of work, allowing six hits, five runs (four earned) while walking four and striking out five.

“I have to give credit to them,” Holder said. “They hit me and my stuff wasn’t that good tonight and they took advantage of it. The pitch that I’m really upset about was a slider to Schimpf in the third that he hit out. It felt like a nail in my heart and I was really pissed off at myself for making that pitch and he did a good job staying in it and he hit it a mile.

“They are a good team and when you make mistakes to good teams, the make you pay.”

Added head coach David Perno: “The home runs and the walks are getting old. Trevor is a command pitcher and he’s not gonna win walking four guys in six innings, he’s just not gonna do it and he knows better than that. He’ll get it going through, I know what he’s made of.”

The Diamond Dogs’ (24-4, 7-3 SEC) offense didn’t fare much better against LSU starter Anthony Ranaudo (3-2), as he held Georgia scoreless over six innings to earn the win. He allowed four hits and struck out 10. In all, 15 Diamond Dogs took strike three and have struck out 60 times over the last five games.

“[The strikeouts are] killing us and its very much a concern,” Perno said. “The one thing we did do is draw five walks, but we can’t strike out 15 times, its just not conducive [to winning]. It’s just not a good approach. Everybody is in a funk and we have to do a better job.”

Ochinko singled in two more runs in the seventh before scoring on an RBI ground out by Leon Landry to extend the LSU advantage to 8-0.

Georgia ended LSU’s shutout hope in the eighth, when catcher Bryce Massanari hit a solo home run (7) into the left field trees.

The Dogs refused to quit however, as they scored three times in the ninth to cut LSU’s lead in half. First baseman Rich Poythress singled in Johnathan Taylor in the ninth for his 50th RBI of the season to make the score 8-2 before Massanari hit his second home run of the game, a two-run shot (8) over the short porch in right field.

“It’s good to get something going at the end of the game to take into the next day, but its tough because we couldn’t get anything going tonight,” center fielder Matt Cerione said. “Hats off to them, Ranaudo pitched well and held us down to earth and we just have to come out fighting and come out ready to play tomorrow.

“. You have to be on top of your game everyday. This is the SEC and you can’t just be going through the motions and you aren’t always going to get those 15-16 run games and sometimes you have to scratch [for runs] and we definitely didn’t do that tonight.”

In addition to Massanari, Georgia received strong play from Cerione and third baseman Colby May. May reached base in all four plate appearances (two singles and two walks) and Cerione reached base three times (two singles and a walk).

Cerione also made a sparkling diving catch to end the top of the fifth, two batters after right fielder Chase Davidson robbed Ochinko of what would have been his second home run of the evening.

But for the most part the defense was shoddy as it committed three errors – Hyams’ drop and Massanari and second baseman Michael Demperio each made throwing errors – to tie them for most in the conference pending Florida’s Friday night game against Vanderbilt.

“Now I’m starting to [worry about the errors] because it’s the same stuff over and over,” Perno said. “A popup, Levi’s not a freshman forever and he’s played enough big games and he’s gotta catch a popup.”

Georgia and LSU continue their three-game series Saturday at 1 p.m. with Alex McRee (2-0, 1.80 ERA) taking the mound for the Dogs and Louis Coleman (6-1 1.23 ERA) pitching for LSU.