A 8-2 loss concluded Texas A&M’s season. With a 12-6 extra innings loss to LSU in game two on Friday, the Aggies were officially eliminated from SEC Tournament contention, meaning Saturday afternoon’s game three would be the season finale for the maroon & white.
The 13-inning duel was the longest game A&M had played since 2018 and head coach Rob Childress said that the team gave it all they had with postseason aspirations on the line.
“They emptied the tank,” said Childress. “We played as hard as we possibly could have played, so did LSU.”
The Aggies hoped to end their season on a high note on Saturday, May 22 with Chris Weber taking the mound for his 17th and final appearance, going up against LSU’s Ma’Khail Hilliard who sported a 4.34 ERA entering Saturday’s rubber match.
But early offensive struggles combined with early defensive lapses and a barrage of LSU home runs proved to be the Aggies’ downfall. Those miscues forced A&M to play catch up all afternoon as the final score read 8-2 Tigers.
Childress said for the Aggies to be in this position is something the staff and players aren’t accustomed to and is disheartened that they won’t get to experience the postseason.
“I’m disappointed not with our guys but for our guys because they don’t get to continue into the postseason experience with going to Hoover and getting into a regional,” Childress said. “It’s something that we’re not accustomed to here at Texas A&M. It’s been a long time since we’ve had to deal with what we’re dealing with today.”
The scoring kicked off quickly with LSU grabbing a 2-0 lead thanks to a pair of A&M throwing errors, and two innings later with a trio of home runs that made it 6-0. Then, in the fourth frame, the Tigers singled home another run to get a 7-0 lead and a bigger cushion.
“It didn’t start out very good,” said Childress. “Leadoff single, three mistakes defensively and we give up two unearned runs. We were on our heels to begin.”
Meanwhile over the first three innings the A&M offense was held hitless with Hilliard only allowing one man to reach base via an error. Hilliard continued to pitch well through the middle innings as his day ended after seven innings in which he gave up two runs and six hits while striking out two.
The Aggies did manage to break through in the fourth inning and get their first two hits of the afternoon starting with a double from Logan Sartori. Sartori was then brought home by Hunter Coleman with an RBI single into left field that came with two outs for A&M’s first run.
A couple innings later the offense struck again with back-to-back two-out doubles from Will Frizzell and Austin Bost to trim the deficit to five with the late innings coming up.
Weber was relieved after three innings by Nathan Dettmer who worked through the next two frames and allowed one run. Sophomore Jonathan Childress was able to silence LSU’s bats though once he took the mound in the sixth inning and remained there through the eighth without surrendering a run and striking out five Tigers.
Neither team scored after the sixth aside from LSU finding the scoreboard one more time in the ninth. A&M was unable to mount a big comeback in the bottom half though as the Tigers took game three and the series.
Childress said he told the players post game that he was proud of them and that they’re disappointed more than anyone else with everything they’ve worked towards.
“[I told them] I was proud of them, certainly there’s nobody more disappointed than those guys in the dugout cause they have more vested than anyone else,” said Childress. “If you would have told me at the start of the season that we’d be 29-27 I would have said you were crazy. But such is the game of baseball and such is the game of life.”
Texas A&M finishes its season with a 29-27 overall record and a 9-21 SEC record while LSU finished their regular season 34-21 overall and 13-17 in the SEC.