The LSU baseball team ended the regular season as the hottest team in the country, winning 16 games in a row entering the Southeastern Conference tournament.
The Tigers continued that hot streak Wednesday with some late-game heroics, scoring five runs in the game’s final two innings to beat South Carolina, 5-4.
LSU entered the ninth inning down 4-0 but scored four runs in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.
Sophomore Blake Dean then hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Tigers’ their 17th win in a row.
“We started off sluggish. It wasn’t like usual, but we believe in each other,” Dean said in an SEC news release. “We know that if one person doesn’t get it done, then the one coming behind him will. Coach always tells us to play the full game. So we played all nine innings. We just kept battling and battling.
Junior Matt Clark hit a three-run homer in the ninth to cut South Carolina’s lead to 4-3.
“It was an amazing comeback,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “It was probably one of the best I have witnessed as a coach. I felt bad for [South Carolina coach] Ray Tanner and his team because they played their hearts out.”
Freshman DJ LeMahieu then walked and later scored on a fly ball that fell just inside the left field chalk line.
With the win, LSU advances to the tournament’s second round Thursday. The Tigers will face Vanderbilt at 5 p.m.
“When you win 16 in a row then you begin to feel like you can win any game,” Tanner said. “We scored an extra run in the top of the ninth, but apparently we needed more runs than that. After the three-run homer, we were one strike away from ending the game.
“I am disappointed but we have to give LSU credit. I know our guys played hard but LSU came up with a tremendous comeback today.”
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Baseball: Late-game heroics lift Tigers past Gamecocks — 5/21
May 21, 2008