LSU loses late, late show to MSU in longest game in SEC tourney history

LSU football's seven-overtime, almost five-hour loss at Texas A&M last November?

Or any of the seven Tigers' basketball games that went to overtime this past season?

Those were walks in the park compared to what transpired Wednesday night/Thursday morning in the Hoover (Ala.) Met Stadium when LSU and Mississippi State both refused to lose in the longest game in Southeastern Conference baseball tournament and LSU history.

Finally, after a combined 125 at-bats, 30 hits, 552 pitches, 38 men left on base and 39 participating players including 11 pitchers, the Bulldogs emerged a 6-5 winner in an 17-inning game that lasted six hours and 43 minutes.

"That was insane," said Tigers' freshman designated hitter Giovanni DiGiacomo, whose two-run homer in the eighth inning deadlocked the game at 4-4 until the 16th inning. "It's crazy how neither team didn't quit."

MSU rightfielder Gunner Halter's game-winning, walk-off RBI single off LSU reliever Ma'Khail Hilliard advanced the fourth-seeded Bulldogs (46-11) to a Thursday night winners’ bracket against top-seed and regular season league champion Vanderbilt.

Fifth-seeded LSU (35-23) fell into the losers’ bracket. The Tigers will be dead men walking when they face eighth-seeded Auburn, an 11-1 Wednesday loser to the Commodores, in a game set for about 1 p.m. Thursday or about 10 hours after the end of the LSU-MSU marathon.

"It's a shame either team had to lose," LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. "Neither team wanted to lose. I had a lot of guys out there putting it all out on the field. They all laid it on the line, one guy after another."

LSU held MSU scoreless for 13 straight innings and still lost when the Bulldogs scored back-to-back runs in the 16th and 17th innings.

DiGiacomo, who tied the game with his eighth-inning two-run homer, scored Antoine Duplantis two hours and 16 minutes later with the go-ahead run at 5-4 on a sacrifice fly in the top of the 16th.

That left it to Tigers' reliever Hilliard to retire the Bulldogs in the bottom of the 16th. But LSU second baseman Brandt Broussard booted MSU center fielder Jake Mangum's two-out ground ball as Landon Jordan scored the game-tying run at 5-5.

It set the stage for heartbreak in the 17th for the Tigers, who for the second straight game fell behind by four runs early.

On Tuesday night after South Carolina roughed up LSU starter Cole Henry for a 5-1 lead through the top of the second, Tigers’ relievers Devin Fontenot and Todd Peterson limited the Gamecocks to one run the rest of the way in an 8-6 Tigers’ victory.

On Wednesday, the fifth largest crowd in SEC tournament history -- 13, 902 -- saw MSU touch LSU starter Eric Walker for four runs in the first four innings before the Tigers battled back against six Bulldogs’ relievers.

LSU reliever Matthew Beck, after facing just two batters Tuesday night in the second inning against South Carolina, threw a season-high 70 pitches in his three-hit, four-inning shutout of the Bulldogs. Zack Hess followed with 60 pitches in a four-hit, four-inning shutout appearance before giving away to Hilliard (0-4) at the start of the 13th. He went 4.2 innings, threw 72 pitches and allowed five hits and two runs while striking out eight.

Beck's nasty curve ball squelched potential MSU rallies in the fifth and seventh innings.

In the fifth, State had runners on first and second base when Beck struck out all-time SEC hits leader Mangum to end the inning. Beck also forced an inning-ending ground out in the seventh with a Bulldogs’ runner on third.

After allowing a leadoff to single to Tanner Allen in the State ninth, Beck was pulled for junior reliever Hess, the Tigers’ most experienced pitcher.

After a Justin Foscue popout and a Dustin Skelton walk, Hess recorded back-to-back swinging strikeouts of Rowdy Jordan and pinch-hitter Hayden Jones to send the game to extra innings.

In the MSU 10th after Hess gave up a leadoff double to Luke Hancock, he shut the door on State after Hancock moved to third on Marshall Gilbert's sacrifice bunt. Hess got a first-pitch ground out from Mangum and then struck out Jordan Westburg for the third out.

After Hess recorded two outs in the MSU 11th, he gave up consecutive singles to Skelton and Jordan before killing State's hopes as pinch-hitter Gunner Halter grounded out.

In the MSU 12th after Hess forced Landon Jordan to fly out to center, he walked Gilbert before Magnum hit a ground rule double that bounced over the right field wall that required Gilbert to return to third base. Then, Westburg and Allen struck out swinging for the second and third outs.

Hilliard entered in the MSU 13th and stayed mostly out of trouble, wiggling out of a jam in the 14th when the Bulldogs left two runners stranded.

LSU loaded the bases in the top of the 15th, but Josh Smith's sharp grounder was plucked by MSU first baseman Allen, who flipped to reliever Keegan James for the third out.

The Bulldogs entered this tournament as a projected top 8 NCAA tourney national seed, so it needed to create motivation.

State’s inspiration, besides wanting to play well entering next week’s regional, was avenging a series loss to earlier this season to LSU as well as a one-and-done loss to the Tigers in last year’s SEC tourney.

On paper, it appeared LSU would have a tough time.

The Bulldogs began Wednesday’s game hitting .321, going against a Tigers’ pitching staff with an earned run average of 4.76. State’s pitching, with a 3.51 ERA and limiting opponents to a .225 batting average, wasn’t exactly scared by LSU’s miniscule .273 batting average.

Early in the game, it played out that way.

State’s batters teed off on Walker, who didn’t have command of a fastball that rarely, if at all, reached 90 miles an hour. He hit three State batters after hitting four batters in 15 previous appearances this season.

Walker was fortunate to allow just four runs on six hits in four innings. He was bailed out of trouble in the first and third inning by rally-killing double plays.

But the complexion of the game changed when Beck replaced Walker to start a string of superb LSU relief innings that got the Tigers back in the game.