BATON ROUGE — For the second consecutive day, LSU blew a lead in the late innings, as Auburn posted five runs in the ninth to rally for a 9-7 victory Sunday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium, giving the visitors the series and the eighth and final spot in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Auburn (35-17, 15-15) will be the eighth seed in the tournament and will play SEC champion Georgia (40-16, 20-10) on Wednesday at 8 p.m. LSU (37-18-1, 18-12) is seeded second and will face seventh-seeded Florida (33-23, 16-14) at 1:30 p.m.
Regardless of the outcome, LSU could not have claimed a share of the overall SEC title, as Georgia routed Kentucky 10-3 to win the title outright.
On Saturday, it was a combination of four LSU pitchers that gave up five runs to Auburn in the eighth inning. On this day, one pitcher was the culprit, and it was none other than LSU ace Lane Mestepey.
Mestepey, the freshman southpaw who has been one of the nation’s best freshman hurlers this season, came into the game in the eighth after starter Tim Nugent yielded a leadoff home run to Mailon Kent. He gave up a walk to Todd Faulkner before Justin Christian reached on a two-out error and Trent Pratt singled, but he got out of that jam by getting Brett Burnham to ground out.
He would not be so fortunate in the ninth. Jonathan Schuerholz reached second when Wally Pontiff threw his routine ground ball into the LSU dugout, then Javon Moran singled to put runners on the corners. Kent then doubled home Scheuerholz and Moran to tie the game.
Kent, Auburn’s senior center fielder, collected career hits 300 and 301 in the game, making him just the 13th player in SEC history to accomplish the feat.
Mestepey intentionally walked Gabe Gross, and Faulkner sacrificed the runners ahead. Scott Schade received an intentional pass to load the bases, then Christian singled past a diving Pontiff to bring home the go-ahead run. Pratt’s single one batter later gave Auburn two insurance runs.
Mestepey took his third loss in his last five outings, giving up five runs in just 1 1/3 innings. Eric Brandon, who picked up the win in relief on Saturday, did so again in this game, giving up just one run in 2 1/3 innings.
Auburn got out to an early 2-0 lead on Schade’s two-run single in the first, but LSU quickly responded in the bottom of the second, as Bryan Moore reached on an infield hit and Todd Linden singled before Johnnie Thibodeaux’s sacrifice fly plated Moore. Ray Wright then launched a two-run homer to give LSU the lead, 3-2.
Schuerholz’ RBI single in the fourth tied the game, but LSU took a 6-3 lead with single runs in the fifth through seventh innings, highlighted by a sixth-inning home run from Fontenot and a seventh-inning single by Pontiff.