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May 14, 2013
By the end of this past weekend’s baseball series between No. 3 LSU and Texas A&M, the crowd at Blue Bell Park in College Station, Texas was evenly split between fans clad in Tigers gold and Aggies maroon.
On the field, the teams were pretty darned even, too – the series was decided by a rubber game that pushed to extra innings.
Luckily for the couple thousand die-hards who made the trek from Louisiana to Texas, it was LSU who scored the last run and also the series victory.
In what will likely go down as one of the best SEC games of the season, junior outfielder Sean McMullen broke a 1-1 tie in Saturday afternoon’s series finale when he smacked a sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth inning, which plated pinch runner Jared Foster from third base.
With the lead in hand, senior closer Chris Cotton closed the door and retired the Aggies in the bottom half to score LSU a 2-1 win in the game that was shortened to seven innings because of the wet weather that plagued the teams throughout the weekend.
In victory, the Tigers clinched the SEC’s Western Division. With defeat, the Aggies lost a chance to strengthen their NCAA Tournament resume against one of the top teams in America.
“One of our goals at the beginning of the season was to win the division title, and I’m extremely proud of our players for their tremendous effort in getting the job done,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “It’s the first of what we hope will be a number of championships this season.”
To get to their goal of Western Division Champions, LSU had to endure rain, a wild road environment and a pesky Texas A&M club fighting for its NCAA Tournament lives.
Saturday was the day that the Tigers tipped the scale in their favor, as the team scored two wins to take the series.
Before playing the afternoon’s series finale and rubber match, LSU was on the field Saturday morning to put the finishing touches on a victory in the second game of the series – a 7-4 win.
The two teams started that game Friday night and played six complete innings with the Tigers holding a 7-2 lead.
But rains swept through College Station before the top of the 7th inning, forcing the teams to push the game’s completion to 9 a.m. on Saturday morning.
With the sun back out and the field dry, three relievers closed the door on the Aggies early Saturday to seal the win to set up the series-deciding game that afternoon.
Sophomore Aaron Nola was masterful in Friday’s portion of game two – tossing six innings before the rains came – allowing just one earned run. With the win, Nola is now 10-0 on the season with an ERA below 2.
In the second-half of the Saturday double-header, there was a postseason feel, as both teams played with heightened intensity.
The Tigers struck first in the top of the third inning when Mark Laird poked a base hit to give LSU a 1-0 lead.
The Aggies answered back in the bottom of the fourth when centerfielder Krey Bratsen plated Daniel Mengden to tie the game.
The teams traded scoring chances throughout the rest of the game, but neither Tiger, nor Aggie could plate the go-ahead run in regulation baseball.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Aggies had the winning run in scoring position with just one out, but Cotton relieved starting pitcher Ryan Eades and induced a double play to push the game into extra innings – a play that shook Blue Bell Park into frenzy because of the heavy population of purple and gold in the seats on this day.
With momentum on their side, catcher Ty Ross opened extra innings with a leadoff double to set up the LSU scoring threat and McMullen’s game-winning sacrifice fly.
The Aggies won their lone game of the series in the opener on Thursday night when they scored a 2-1 victory in a contest that saw more than three hours of rain delays spread among five total stoppages in play.
With the series victory, the Tigers will head into the final weekend of the season knowing that they’ll be the No. 2 seed in next week’s SEC Tournament.
Mainieri said he wants his team to celebrate the Western Division Championship for a day or two, but not for a prolonged period of time.
He said his team knows that this is just their first goal in an array of goals they have hopes to attain in 2013.
This marks the second-straight SEC West Title for the Tigers and their fourth in seven seasons under Mainieri.
“We’ve had a remarkable season,” Mainieri said. “But we realize we’ve only just begun. There are many more goals in front of us.”
Colonels take 2, need final weekend help
The Nicholls State baseball team won two of three games against Northwestern State this weekend – that’s the good news.
But the bad news is that McNeese State also won two games this weekend – scoring an upset road series win against Oral Roberts.
That means that with one weekend to play in the regular season, the Colonels need to win this weekend against Lamar and also get help if they hope to bypass the Cowboys and reach the eight-team Southland Conference Tournament field.
Entering this weekend’s games, the Cowboys hold the No. 8 spot in the 10-team league, owning a 9-15 record in Southland Conference games.
The Colonels trail just behind with an 8-16 record.
Looking at the schedules, neither team seems to have an apparent edge over the other. The Colonels will travel to play Lamar, who holds a 13-11 record in the Southland.
McNeese will host Southeastern Louisiana, which is just a game better than Lamar at 14-10.
The Colonels don’t have to pass up the Cowboys to reach the Southland Tournament – they just have to tie their in-state rival.
If the teams finish the season equal, Nicholls will advance to the postseason because they swept the Cowboys in mid-April during a three-game series.
LSU pitcher Ryan Eades fires a pitch during a game this season. The Tigers’ junior was solid in Saturday’s 2-1 extra innings win against Texas A&M – a victory that allowed LSU to win the three-game series, which often felt like a postseason regional. With the wins, LSU clinched the SEC Western Division Title.
