LSU Baseball's season ends as Tigers lose in extra innings to North Carolina

The LSU Baseball team faced off against the North Carolina Tar Heels for the third time in three days in the Regional Championship with a trip to Super Regionals on the line. An LSU Tiger win meant that the team would host the Tuscon Regional Champion West Virginia Mountaineers while a loss ended what's been a great second half of the season. Both teams have put a toll on their pitching staffs this weekend meaning the game became a bullpen game.

Carolina started hot leading the game off with three straight singles which made Jay Johnson pull Sam Dutton before he recorded an out turning the game over to Javen Coleman. The Tigers walked in the first run giving UNC a early 1-0 lead the Tigers turned a double play and got a fly out avoiding disaster keeping the score 2-0. The Tigers fought right back getting on the board with a Josh Pearson RBI ground out to cut UNC's lead to one.

The Tar Heels put traffic on the bases again in the second making Jay Johnson go to Will Hellmers who struck out Vance Honeycutt and got a fly-out against Parks Harber to help LSU put up a zero. Jake Brown tied the game up in the second inning on the first pitch he saw on an absolute bomb of a home run.

In the third inning, Jared Jones gave the LSU Baseball team its first lead of the day with a no-doubter to deep center field.

This game quickly became the Will Hellmers show as he sat down twelve straight before a UNC Tar Heels batters before giving up a single in the 7th inning giving LSU some much-needed length out of the bullpen. The issue for LSU was that Matthew Matthijs was as dominant on the other side keeping LSU from extending the one-run lead.

Will Hellmers talked Jay Johnson into letting him get the final out of the seventh with a runner on third and it worked as Hellmers got a fly out to left. After convincing Johnson to let him finish the 7th Hellmers returned for the eighth but he walked the leadoff batter turning the game over to Nate Ackenhausen. Hellmers finished off his incredible relief appearance by pitching 5.2 innings allowing just dour base runners with four strikeouts keeping the Tarheels off the scoreboard.

Nate Ackenhausen came and sat down three straight Tar Heels putting LSU Baseball three outs away from Super Regionals. The Tigers short in relievers turned to Gage Jump to close out the Tar Heels in just his second relief appearance of the season. Jump gave up a leadoff double but, got an incredible roll on a bunt for an out before allowing UNC to score the tying run.

Hayden Travinski hit a one-out single in the ninth allowing Johnson to pinch-run Mac Bingham with the winning run on base but LSU was unable to end the game in regulation.

The Tar Heels then scored the go-ahead run in the tenth as Gage Jump let up the run after a misplay in right field that likely should've been an out. The Tigers had the top of the order up in the tenth but, after a Bear Jones Walk the Tigers were unable to drive him in.

What a sad ending to such an incredible ride

Early on this season, the LSU Baseball team looked like it was headed to danger as the team struggled early on. The second half of the season was incredible as LSU flipped the script of the season putting them on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament before the SEC Tournament. The Tigers then went all the way to the SEC Championship losing but, punching their ticket to regionals. In Regionals, LSU made it again to the Final and was three outs away from hosting a Super Regional but, the Tigers couldn't finish the job. This team was so incredible in the second half of the year that it felt like they could beat anyone and if the pitching staff wasn't spent they likely could have.