BATON ROUGE - It all ended badly for LSU Sunday with a 9-1 loss to Ole Miss in the Southeastern Conference Tournament championship game in Hoover, Alabama, but what a week it was nonetheless.
The No. 8 seed Tigers (37-25) won four road games in five days to match their season total. And LSU is strongly expected to earn an at-large NCAA Regional invite as it significantly enhanced its Ratings Percentage Index ranking with wins over No. 1 RPI Florida, No. 2 RPI Arkansas and No. 26 RPI Mississippi State through the course of the week.
The 16 NCAA Regional sites were to be announced Sunday night with the pairings announcement for the 64-team field set for 11 a.m. Monday on ESPNU. LSU, which rose from No. 42 on Monday to No. 33 on Sunday in the RPI, is expected to travel with a No. 2 or No. 3 seed. NCAA Regional play begins on Friday.
No. 2 seed Ole Miss (46-15) expects to receive one of the top eight national seeds that will allow it to host the NCAA Regional round and the Super Regional round if they continue to advance.
"I feel fairly confident that we're going to the NCAA Tournament," Mainieri said before beating RPI No. 1 Florida, 11-0, in a game that began on Friday but didn't finish until Saturday morning because of a fog postponement, and before beating RPI No. 2 Arkansas, 2-1, on Saturday night.
“I’m so proud of this team for what it accomplished this week,” Mainieri said after the Ole Miss loss, which was his first in seven SEC Tournament championship games. "We came here with our postseason fate in doubt, and we firmly established ourselves as a team worthy of an NCAA regional bid."
LSU's pitching blossomed here as sophomore right-hander Todd Peterson earned a save as a closer and a win in relief in addition to delivering the eventual game-winning, two-run double in a 6-4 win over South Carolina on Thursday in what was believed to be his his first at-bat in an actual game since grade school. Cam Sanders, who struggled throughout the season, also pitched well twice.
Sanders, a junior transfer right-hander, kept LSU in the game Sunday as he relieved struggling starter Caleb Gilbert in the fourth inning and one-hit Ole Miss through three innings of shutout ball with four strikeouts and no walks.
Gilbert (3-5) allowed nine hits and three runs in three innings for the loss.
LSU took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a two-out double by Daniel Cabrera, but it would go on to finish with only four hits and leave eight runners on base.
The Rebels tied it 1-1 in the second, took a 2-1 lead in the third and made it 3-1 in the fourth. Ole Miss broke it open in the seventh with four runs for a 7-1 lead, including a two-run home run by Tim Rowe off reliever Trent Vietmeier and a two-run single by Will Golsan off reliever Devin Fontenot.
Michael Fitzsimmons hit a two-run home run in the ninth for the 9-1 final. Ole Miss had 15 hits in all off five LSU pitchers.
Ole Miss starter Houston Roth allowed the one LSU run on four hits with four strikeouts and one walk. Ryan Rolison (9-4) picked up the win in relief as he entered in the sixth with a 3-1 lead and no-hit the Tigers through two innings with three strikeouts and one walk. Greer Holston then no-hit LSU over the final two innings with three more strikeouts.
"We had a lot of outstanding performances throughout the week that give us a lot of hope moving forward into next week,” Mainieri said.
