BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) – One by one the missed opportunities piled up and ultimately LSU paid dearly for them. Coastal Carolina’s Michael Paez’s high chopper over third baseman Chris Reid in the bottom of the 9th, scored a hustling Anthony Marks from second base and sent the Chanticleers to the College World Series for the first time in the program’s history with a 4-3 win over the Tigers. The Coastal Carolina players then sprinted out of their dugout in jubilation and swarmed Paez between second and third base, with the celebration morphing into a dog pile before the stunned paid Alex Box Stadium crowd of 11,606.

LSU showed grit to fight back from multiple deficits during the night, but in the end the Tigers lack of timely hitting doomed them to defeat. Trailing 3-2 in the top of the 9th, LSU tied the score on a Jake Fraley bunt to score Cole Freeman. Fraley then collided with first baseman Kevin Woodall Jr., flipping into the air and according to the reply, perhaps didn’t even touch the first base bag. Regardless, the Tigers had runners on the corners with nobody out and then failed to push the go ahead run across. LSU would leave 12 men on base before the night was over, 8 of which occurring in the final three frames.

Tiger junior left hander Jared Poche left to a standing ovation in the 6th inning, in what is believed to be his final game at LSU. Poche had some bad luck in the bottom of the first, as the Chanticleers grabbed a quick 2-0 lead. But the Lutcher native would gut out 5 1/3 innings pitched, allowing 3 earned runs on just five hits.

LSU finishes their year with a 45-21 overall record and exceeded many people’s expectations, considering the large volume of talent lost off of last year’s roster. However hosting a Super Regional had plenty of Tiger fans fired up for another return to Omaha. However those hopes were dashed in two games by a confident group of kids from Conway, South Carolina.