Tracking Glory with Hal Martin
May 28, 2013
Nicholls aims to win the close ones next year
May 28, 2013
Nine innings wasn’t enough to decide a winner in Sunday afternoon’s SEC Championship game between No. 2 LSU and No. 1 Vanderbilt.
But in the 11th inning, a winner emerged and a champion was crowned.
For the 10th time in school history, the Tigers are the kings of SEC baseball.
In a back and forth slugfest between America’s two top teams, the Tigers and Commodores pushed into extra innings with the score tied at 4.
In the top of the 11th inning, LSU pinch hitter Chris Sciambra broke the tie and poked an RBI single to center field to give the Tigers a 5-4 lead.
That advantage held up for the duration, as senior closer Chris Cotton shut down Vanderbilt in order to give LSU the one-run win – their 52nd of the season.
“What a tremendous college baseball game,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “Vanderbilt has a great team, and our kids just played their hearts out. Our players woke up this morning knowing they had a chance to win a championship, and they got the job done.”
With the win, the Tigers will now head to the NCAA Tournament with momentum.
LSU was named as one of 16 host sites for the opening rounds of the 64-team tournament.
The Tigers are the No. 4 national seed and will host a Super Regional if they advance beyond the opening weekend of play.
But before the Super Regionals, the Tigers must advance in this weekend’s double elimination tournament with Jackson State, Sam Houston State and UL-Lafayette.
LSU will open the weekend tournament with Jackson State – the SWAC champion.
The Mississippi-based Tigers have a 34-20 record on the season and own a seven-game winning streak – including a four-game run in the conference tournament.
If the Tigers are victorious in their first game, they would meet the winner of Friday’s game between Sam Houston and UL.
The Bearkats are the Southland Conference’s regular season champion, owning a 37-20 record. They have defeated Baylor, Texas, Rice, Texas A&M and Houston on the season.
The Ragin’ Cajuns are an at-large participant out of the Sun Belt. UL was 41-18 on the year and 19-11 in their conference.
They met the Tigers once this season and were defeated 11-2.
But the Cajuns enter the Baton Rouge Regional red-hot, having won seven of their past eight games.
If LSU rolls through the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament, they will face the winner of the Blacksburg Regional in the Super Regionals.
No. 1 seed Virginia Tech is the host of that four-team bracket, which also features No. 2 Oklahoma, No. 3 Coastal Carolina and No. 4 Connecticut.
No one that the Tigers see in the Regionals nor Super Regionals will be as decorated as the Commodores, who proved a worthy challenger for the SEC title.
LSU and Vanderbilt have been the SEC’s top two teams throughout the entire season. Ironically, they avoided one another throughout the course of the 30-game SEC schedule.
When given a chance to lock horns in the final game of the conference season, the teams put on a show.
LSU struck first in the top of the second inning, scoring three runs – a rally sparked by RBI singles by Jared Foster and Andrew Stevenson.
The Commodores struck back for two of their own in the bottom of the second inning to make the game 3-2.
LSU added another run in the fourth on another RBI single from Foster to make the score 4-2.
That lead held up until the bottom of the seventh inning, thanks to Tri-parish native Brent Bonvillain.
The former Thibodaux High School standout fared well in the biggest start of his career, tossing four innings of work, allowing just two earned runs.
But with Bonvillain out, the Commodores found luck against the LSU bullpen.
Vanderbilt tied the game at 4 in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI double from shortstop Vince Conde.
The Commodores seemed prime to take the lead in the inning, but Foster ended a two-on and one-out rally for Vanderbilt when he gunned out a runner at home after a shallow fly ball to right field.
The teams traded punches until the 11th inning when the Tigers finally broke free and scored the winning run.
Cotton sealed the title in the 11th – retiring Vanderbilt in order.
His perfect 11th was the icing on the cake of a perfect outing. Cotton pitched two and two-thirds innings in the win, retiring all eight of the hitters he faced.
For his efforts, he was named the SEC Tournament MVP.
Mainieri said he is proud of the way his team played against the Commodores and throughout the entire week of the SEC Tournament.
Before beating Vanderbilt, the Tigers also beat Alabama (twice) and Arkansas throughout the week.
The coach said he believes winning a postseason tournament will prove fruitful for the Tigers next week when the games matter most.
“Winning this tournament means a lot to our players,” Mainieri said. “And it can do nothing but help us moving forward.”
The LSU baseball team huddles around its latest prize – the 2013 SEC Championship Trophy. The Tigers earned the trophy after winning the 2013 SEC Tournament, scoring a victory against No. 1 Vanderbilt in the tournament finals. The Tigers will move to the Baton Rouge Regional this weekend, where they will be the No. 4 national seed.
