BATON ROUGE — Jon Zeringue’s one-out home run in the bottom of the 11th inning lifted LSU to a 9-8 victory over UNC Wilmington in the championship game of the Baton Rouge regional on Sunday at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU (43-19-1) won its eighth consecutive regional championship–all at home–and improved to 20-1 all-time in regional championship round games. The Tigers have won 13 of 15 regionals played in Baton Rouge, missing out only in 1992 and 1995 when Cal St. Fullerton left with the crown.
The Tigers, the No. 2 national seed in the tournament, will now play Baylor in a best-of-three super regional series, most likely in Baton Rouge. The dates and times for the series will be announced on Monday at 11 a.m. CST. Tickets are on sale now at the LSU Ticket Office or by calling 1-800-960-8587 or (225) 578-2184.
UNCW (40-23) were attempting to win their second straight extra inning game to force a decisive title game later in the evening. The Seahawks, making their first appearance in an NCAA baseball tournament, had eliminated Tulane 9-8 in 10 innings on Saturday night.
Jason Determann retired the Seahawks in order in the top of the 11th, and Zeringue ended the game two batters into the bottom of the inning with his 12th home run of the year into the left field bleachers.
LSU, which came into this game 0-4 in extra inning games in 2003, started the bottom of the 10th with a ground ball single by Bruce Sprowl, and then an error by Russ Simmerman on a J.C. Holt ground ball moved Sprowl to third. Aaron Hill then tied the game with a base hit, and then a Matt Carter wild pitch moved Hill and Holt to second and third.
Blake Gill was intentionally walked following the wild pitch, and that left UNCW reliever Ronald Hill to face Clay Harris, who had already hit into two costly double plays. Harris popped up to right field on a fly ball that was not deep enough to score Holt, and then Ivan Naccarata lined out to short to force another extra inning.
UNCW started the top of the 10th inning with a base hit by Chip Grawey, and after a sacrifice bunt, the Seahawks had a runner on first when Grawey was thrown out at third on a ground ball by Jamie Hemingway. But Matt Sutton came through with the big two-out hit, launching a double high off the center field fence to score
With the game tied 5-5 through four innings, the Seahawks reclaimed the lead at 7-5 on a two-run home run by Matt Wright, the second of the game and third of the regional for the UNCW first baseman.
The Tigers got a run in the bottom of the fifth when an error by shortstop Aaron Wright on Ryan Patterson’s infield hit allowed Naccarata to go to third and eventually score on Jon Zeringue’s sacrifice fly.
The Tigers loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth with a chance to break the game open, but they would have to settle for a 7-7 tie when
LSU, which had played just two games in the tournament compared to UNCW’s three, jumped out to the early to 2-0 lea din the bottom of the first on an RBI double by Hill and an error on the throw back to the infield that moved Hill into position to score on a sacrifice fly by Gill.
But the Seahawks, who rallied from three different deficits in Saturday’s 9-8, 10-inning win over Tulane to reach the championship round, cut the Tiger lead in half in the second on a home run by Russ Simmerman before stunning the partisan crowd with a four-run third.
Bo Pettit, who retired seven of the first eight batters he faced, hit ninth-place hitter Brad Denson with one out and gave up a base hit to Chip Grawey, and one batter later, Wright launched a three-run home run over the right field fence to give the Seahawks a 4-2 lead, a lead that grew larger two batters when Sutton took Pettit deep for another home run.
Pettit struck out nine over seven innings, but gave up seven runs on six hits and was saddled with a no decision. Jason Determann worked the final four innings and gave up just one run on two hits to improve to 6-0 on the year.
Holt was named the tournament’s most outstanding player, as a 2-for-5 effort capped off a tournament in which he hit .643 (9-for-14) with eight RBI.
UNC Wilmington (40-23) 014 020 000 10– 8 8 4
LSU (43-19-1) 200 311 000 11– 9 15 1
Chris Coughlin, Will Hunt (4), Matt Carter (6), Ronald Hill (10) and Neal Eichhorn, Pat Murphy (6); Bo Pettit, Jason Determann (8) and Matt Liuzza.
WP–Determann, 6-0.
LP–Hill, 7-2.
2B–UNCW: Matt Sutton (16); LSU: Aaron Hill (27).
HR–UNCW: Matt Wright 2 (11), Sutton (12), Simmerman (6); LSU: Ryan Patterson (14), Jon Zeringue (12).
T–3:31.
A–7,567 (paid); 6,418 (actual).
2003 NCAA BATON ROUGE REGIONAL
GAME 6: UNC-WILMINGTON vs. LSU
June 1, 2003
LSU HEAD COACH SMOKE LAVAL
“It is great to win but I tell you what after the ball game I went up to their coach (UNC-WILMINGTON head coach Mark Scalf) and said if you call and want to come and play us down here next year then I am not going to invite you. They are an outstanding baseball team. They are very well-coached and very well-schooled. They know the game and if you look at their conference you might think they do not hit real well. I know Virginia Commonwealth has two arms and I think James Madison and Old Dominion each have one. They play some very good baseball in that conference and these guys compete and play hard. I would rather have a team that doesn’t compete and play hard with a lot more talent, but boy these guys were very difficult. I am proud of LSU and the way these gentleman performed today. They did not quit or hang their heads. They started to show a little emotion when things weren’t going right but that is part of it when you are dealing with young individuals.”
CENTER FIELDER J.C. HOLT
“I am not going to say too much because Smoke (Laval) said a whole lot and I was actually going to tell him to slow down because that is what people have been telling me. The big factors in today’s game were Jon Zeringue and Jason Determann threw a heck of a game coming out of the bullpen. Bo (Pettit) battled the whole day. I was real proud of the whole team because we played catch-up the whole day and I knew finally we would win if we just kept it close. It just shows the heart of this team and I am just real proud of everyone.”
STARTING PITCHER BO PETTIT
“Those guys can hit pretty good. Today I just wanted to keep the team pretty close in the game. This was a great team effort and together I think we played a heck of a ball game. I made a few bad pitches to those guys and they did what they were supposed to with them. Overall I did not walk many guys and I think the one guy I walked was driven in on a home run. The walks did not hurt me, it was just the bad pitches that I made. It was just a great team effort today and my hat goes off to the other team because they were a bunch of classy guys and they had a great season.”
SHORTSTOP AARON HILL
“I have to tip my hat also to those guys because they are a great ball club and a great bunch of guys and I have a lot of respect for them. Bo Pettit came out and pitched a great game. They did score some runs off of him because that is what happens and that is baseball. I think the key to the game was just Bo sticking in there and not giving up. We picked up on that and even though it was hot and a lot of guys wanted to go home. We kept in it and you could really feel the togetherness of this team, especially right at the end.”
RIGHT FIELDER JON ZERINGUE
On his game-winning homerun against Ronald Hill
“I had seen this pitcher before and I knew he had a good curveball. I just wanted to lay off the one in the dirt and try to go after one that I could drive. He started me off with a fastball and I let it go because I felt it might have beat me. Next he threw a changeup and then came back with a curve and he hung it and I tried to get my best swing on it because it was hot and we had to try to get out of here. I do not know about the other guys but I do not know if I could have made another game. I am glad it ended the way it did because I had a lot of fortune and God was looking down on me. I just got a big hit when it counted.”
THIRD BASEMAN IVAN NACCARATA
“Today i hit the ball well and I was just trying to do exactly what I did yesterday. I hit the ball well at first base and then at shorstop at the end but I knew the guys would be there to pick me up and get a hit later. I hit the ball straight at the guy and that could have won the game but that is how baseball goes. I was just waiting for a guy like Jonathan Zeringue to win it. It was good and I have a lot of respect for the other team and they did an excellent job too.”
UNC-WILMINGTON QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Scalf
“Tough to get any better then that right there. I don’t know from a fan standpoint, but I definitely feel like you can’t script it out any better then that. From a coach and player standpoint, it’s awful difficult to play that type of game. Those teams competed the entire day. We made a few too many mistakes and they swung the bat better then we did and were able to put the final run on the board late. I couldn’t be any prouder of the young men on our club. To play as well as we have, carry us to this point and to be quite honest, I don’t know if they wanted to play us one more time.”
First Baseman Matt Wright
“Basically, I felt really comfortable at the plate. It’s our last game and for me personally as a senior, it’s my last go around and you want to play well. Enough about the game, the fans here are probably the best fans I have ever met in my life and other then being a Seahawk, I’m going to start pulling for LSU from here on out.”
Outfielder Chip Grawey
“Like Matt Wright said, the fans here are great. It was a pleasure playing ball today. We came in after two long ones yesterday and a long hot day yesterday, we knew it was going to be a battle today. We knew that whoever could get through the heat would take it. Great battle, great fans, great atmosphere out here in Baton Rouge and like (Matt Wright) he said, go LSU.”