BATON ROUGE — LSU moved one step closer to securing a top seed in an NCAA regional tournament, and in the process dropped Alabama into second place in the Southeastern Conference with 3-0 and 6-5 victories in a Saturday doubleheader at Alex Box Stadium.
The regular season finale for both teams will be Sunday at 1 p.m., as LSU will honor its 11 outgoing seniors with the traditional Senior Day ceremonies beginning at 12:45 p.m.
Alabama (44-11, 20-9) now finds itself in a position it hasn’t been in all season, and that’s out of first place in the SEC overall race. The Crimson Tide now trails South Carolina (43-12, 20-8) by one-half game. If the Gamecocks win at Georgia on Sunday, they will win their second SEC title in the last three years. An Alabama win and a South Carolina loss gives the Tide their first league title since sharing it with LSU and Florida in 1996 and their first outright crown since 1983.
LSU (37-17, 18-10) will be seeded either third or fourth in the SEC Tournament, which begins Wednesday at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Birmingham.
In the first game, Alabama ace Lance Cormier retired the first nine Tiger he faced and allowed just two hits through the first six innings, but the Fighting Tigers rallied for three runs in the seventh inning, and combined with Lane Mestepey’s complete game five-hit shutout, gave LSU a 3-0 triumph.
The second game saw LSU lose its starting left fielder and coach to ejections, then take a 5-1 lead before holding off two Crimson Tide rallies LSU had just five runners on base in the first six innings, and only one that reached second base, as Cormier, a Lafayette native, had Tiger hitters tied in knots.
But Wally Pontiff led off the seventh with a double to right field, and Sean Barker, the Tigers’ leading hitter, promptly followed with a single up the middle to score Pontiff with the game’s first run, while Barker took second on the throw home.
A base hit by Matt Heath put runners on first and third, then Blake Gill lifted a single just out of the reach of Crimson Tide shortstop Adam Pavkovich to score Barker for a 2-0 edge.
Cormier (9-3) struck out Dustin Hahn for the first out of the inning, but fell behind 3-0 when David Raymer lined a single through the right side of the Tide infield.
The runs would be more than enough for Mestepey, the Tigers’ sophomore left-hander who won his first game in three weeks to improve to 10-3.
Mestepey, who shut out Arkansas on four hits in his last start at home on April 26, has thrown 23 1/3 consecutive shutout innings at home, having not allowed a run since two out in the third inning of an April 12 game against Georgia.
Last year, Mestepey pitched a complete-game four hitter in Tuscaloosa as the Tigers won 4-2, scoring three runs in the seventh off of Cormier after
Alabama took an early 1-0 lead Alabama’s Travis Garner collected the game’s first hit in the first off of Mestepey, and after stealing second, he went to third on a single by Jeremy Brown. But the runners would remain stranded when Brent Boyd grounded to second.
Grant Redding’s leadoff single in the fifth would give the Tide another scoring threat, but he was left at third when Allen Rice fouled out to Pontiff at third.
Scott McClanahan and Brown would put together singles in the ninth, and Brent Boyd just missed a game-tying home run with ball that went just to the right of the right-field foul pole, but Mestepey would fan Boyd to end the game in one hour, 57 minutes.
The Tide had scored just one run through the first 14 innings of the doubleheader, but finally busted loose for three runs in the sixth inning of the second game to cut LSU’s lead to 5-4.
LSU starter Brian Wilson gave up a leadoff walk to Beau Hearod and a single to Chad White to put runners on the corners, then Garner lined a base hit to right-center to score Hearod to pare the deficit to 5-2 before McClanahan’s two-run double to chase Wilson.
Tiger reliever Clay Harris struck out Pavkovich for the first out, but then Peter Stonard reached on an error by LSU second baseman Holt, before a walk to Brown loaded the bases. LSU’s Jake Tompkins, the fourth pitcher of the inning, got out of the jam by fanning Boyd on a pitch in the dirt.
Barker singled home Aaron Hill in the seventh to give LSU a 6-4 lead, but Alabama would again threaten in the eighth, as back-to-back hits by Rice and McClanahan started the inning, and following a sacrifice bunt by Pavkovich that moved the runners, Stonard’s fly ball to short left scored Rice to make it a one-run game again.
Tompkins walked Brown after having the Alabama catcher down 0-2, but Boyd would be left at the plate when McClanahan was caught in a rundown.
Tompkins worked a perfect ninth for his fourth save.
LSU ran into trouble at the end of the second inning of the second game, as Matt Heath was called out on a play at first base, although it appeared that Heath beat the throw from Tide shortstop Pavkovich. First base umpire Al Davis ejected Heath after spiking his helmet in disgust, and LSU coach Smoke Laval would be ejected moments later by crew chief Tony Maners for arguing the same call with Davis.
Alabama scored its first run of the series in the top of the third on Stonard’s RBI single, but the Tigers would tie the score in the bottom of the frame as Raymer walked, took third on a single by Jon Zeringue and scored on a balk by Tide pitcher Jeffery Norris.
LSU would extend its lead to 5-1 in the fourth on an RBI triple by Dustin Hahn, who came in when Heath was ejected and on a three-run home run by Chris Phillips.