The LSU baseball team lost Saturday for the first time since April 22, ending the Tigers’ Southeastern Conference record 23-game winning streak.
The Tigers dropped the first game of the Baton Rouge Super Regional to California-Irvine, 11-5, in a game that featured a controversial call and the ejection of LSU assistant coach Javi Sanchez.
LSU junior right fielder Derek Helenihi came to the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning with two outs and the bases loaded. LSU trailed, 6-2, when the Anteaters escaped the LSU rally with a hidden ball trick.
“It was a big play in the game,” said LSU coach Paul Maineiri. “We were down, but we had the bases loaded and a pretty good hitter up. I would’ve loved to have seen the kid get a chance to swing the bat.”
As Helenihi came to the plate, UC Irvine sophomore second baseman Casey Stevenson kept the baseball instead of giving it to junior pitcher Scott Gorgen. Stevenson told Gorgen not to step onto the mound.
Stevenson returned to second base where LSU freshman shortstop DJ LeMahieu took a step off the bag.  
“From my vantage point, I saw DJ [LeMahieu] one step off the base,” Maineiri said. “I saw the pitcher standing on the backside [of the mound] probably on the turf, off the clay barely. The second baseman broke toward him, and DJ took his left foot and stepped back on the base with his left foot.
“I thought he was clearly safe getting back, and I don’t think the umpire was watching. It was a long hesitation obviously. The second baseman kind of sold him on the call by showing him the ball and running off the field.”
As the Anteaters ran off the field, and second base umpire David Rogers called LeMahieu out, Maineiri and Sanchez went onto the field to protest the call.
Sanchez was ejected from the game while Maineiri and LeMahieu talked to the umpires between innings. LSU junior first baseman Matt Clark, who was on third base during the play, left the field screaming and throwing his helmet to the ground.
UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie said he did not call or see the play. Stevenson said the trick was his idea and he did not warn the umpires to watch for it prior to the game.
“We like to do that,” Stevenson said. “If it happens during a time where we’re able to tell them, we will. That particular time, we weren’t really able to give him the heads up because he was so close.”
While most talk during and following the game centered on the tricky defensive play, Maineiri was quit to point out UC Irvine outplayed LSU.
“I don’t think we played very well at all [Saturday night] in really any aspect of the game,” Maineiri said. “We got off to a bad start, walking the first two batters of the game, and – like Irvine does – they execute. If we make mistakes, they’re going to take advantage of it.”
LSU junior pitcher Ryan Verdugo walked the game’s first two batters with a string of seven consecutive balls. UC Irvine took control early with a sacrafice bunt by sophomore first baseman Jeff Cusick and a two-RBI single up the middle by junior designated hitter Tony Asaro.
Clark became the game’s next base runner with a ground-rule double down the right field line in the bottom of the second inning. 
LeMahieu followed the double, reaching on an error by UC Irvine junior shortstop Ben Orloff and advancing Clark to third base. The play allowed Clark to score on a sacrifice fly by freshman center fielder Leon Landry in the next at bat.
Landry’s sacrifice fly closed the UC Irvine lead to 2-1, the closest it would be for the remainder of the game.
Cusick stretched the Anteaters’ lead to 3-1 with an RBI single over Clark’s head in the top of the fifth inning. UC Irvine continued its offensive out put and busted the game open in the sixth inning.
LSU sophomore pitcher Paul Bertuccini replaced Verdugo to start the sixth inning. Bertuccini threw eight balls in his first nine pitches to walk the first two batters he faced.
UC Irvine sophomore right fielder Sean Madigan hit a three-run home run one batter later. This expanded UC Irvine’s lead to 6-1.
The first five Anteaters to score all reached base on walks.
Gorgen loaded the bases with three consecutive walks in the bottom of the sixth inning. Landry drove in a run on an infield single before UC Irvine escaped with Stevenson’s trickery.
The Anteaters added two runs in the top of the seventh, and each team scored three runs in the eighth inning.
LeMahieu hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth, the Tigers’ only long ball of the night.
“I was trying to get the ball up,” LeMahieu said. “It was late in the game. And we didn’t win the game, so it’s really not an issue.”
LSU junior designated hitter Blake Dean went 0-for-5, striking out during his first three at bats. The frustrating night came after being the Most Outstanding Player of the Baton Rouge Regional this past weekend.
“If I get myself out, that’s where I’m in trouble,” Dean said. “If I get myself in a hole, that’s where I get in trouble. And I got myself in a whole tonight, and he capitalized.”
The Tigers and Anteaters will play game two of the Super Regional on Sunday at 3 p.m. 
LSU senior pitcher Jared Bradford and UC Irvine sophomore pitcher Daniel Bibona are scheduled to start.
—-Contact Jerit Roser at [email protected]