BATON ROUGE, La. — It didn't end as LSU hoped it would, but the Tigers' gutsy performance in the SEC tournament vaulted them to the familiar position of hosting an NCAA regional tournament this weekend.
LSU will find out which other teams will be playing in Baton Rouge Monday when the pairings for the college baseball tournament are announced.
The Tigers won three games and lost a 17-inning contest before falling to Vanderbilt one game shy of the SEC Championship game.
All-session books will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, May 30, at 8 a.m. The sale will be available online at www.LSUTIX.net or by calling the ticket office or by visiting the ticket office in person.
Despite not winning the SEC tournament, three Tigers made the All-SEC Tournament Team - Shortstop Josh Smith, second baseman Brandt Broussard and catcher Saul Garza each earned all-tournament recognition. The trio helped lead LSU to a third-place finish at the tournament, as LSU reached the semifinal round for the seventh straight year.
“It is always disappointing when you get eliminated from a tournament, so you can’t be really happy right now,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “Like I told the kids, we are not going to let this one day take away from what we did this week. There were three pretty remarkable days in a row. We lost a 17-inning game so I include that in there because we fought so hard for so long.
“To come back and have to play the next day on such short rest just took some unbelievable fortitude from our players. Then yesterday, we played so great against a great team with a big score. We did yesterday to Mississippi State what Vanderbilt did to us today.”
LSU senior rightfielder Antoine Duplantis tripled in the sixth inning to set the LSU career triples record with 16. Duplantis surpassed former LSU All-American second baseman Todd Walker, who collected 15 triples from 1992-94.
Duplantis had two hits Saturday, increasing his career hits total to 349. He need four hits to surpass former first baseman Eddy Furniss (352 hits, 1995-98) as LSU’s career hits leader.
“We’re definitely glad we got those three wins here in the tournament,” Duplantis said. “I think looking at those wins and how hard we fought throughout this week, I think that just sets us up for positive momentum into the postseason.”