By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Needing just two outs to secure a victory for the NCAA’s Chapel Hill Regional championship to advance LSU to a Super Regional it would host, the Tigers’ reign as college baseball’s defending national champions ended Monday night in the cruelest fashion.
Gage Jump, LSU’s top starting pitcher suddenly being used as a reliever, gave up a game-tying one-out RBI single in the top of the ninth and the eventual game-winning two-out RBI in the top of the 10th as No. 4 national seed North Carolina rallied from a 3-2 deficit to a 4-3 victory.
“I’m sad because I’d give anything to practice on Wednesday and get ready for a Super Regional at home,” said LSU third-year coach Jay Johnson, whose team bounced back from a 3-12 start in SEC play to advance to the league tourney finals, earn an NCAA Tournament bid and finish 43-23 after coming within a whisker from winning a road regional. “But my heart is full right now because of these guys.
“In terms of how I will remember this, I’m good. I’ve got all the peace in the world right now about what these guys did. I’m proud of them.”
North Carolina (45-14) will go into a Super Regional as a host vs. West Virginia knowing it was battle-tested and pushed to the max by the resilient Tigers who battled out of the loser’s bracket.
“Tonight’s game was perfect because it showed you how much of a team we are,” said UNC second baseman Alex Madera, whose 10th-inning RBI single plated the game-winning run. “We used pretty much every single guy that we have on our roster, and everybody showed.”
The Tar Heels took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning, knocking LSU starting pitcher Sam Dutton out of the game after 11 pitches.
North Carolina starting pitcher Jason DeCaro lasted two innings, giving up two runs and two of LSU’s game-total five hits including Tigers’ right fielder Jake Brown’s game-tying solo homer in the second.
LSU first baseman Jared Jones edged the Tigers ahead 3-2 with a third-inning solo homer off Matthew Matthijs, the first of just two relievers used by UNC.
Once LSU senior Will Helmers entered the game with one out in the UNC second, it was a duel of relievers. First, it was Helmers vs. Matthijs until Tar Heels reliever Dalton Pence replaced Matthijs with one out in the seventh.
That UNC relief duo gave up a combined one run and three hits in the last eight innings. Pence, who held LSU hitless and scoreless in the last two innings of UNC’s 6-2 win on Saturday, blanked the Tigers again over the final 3.2 innings.
“He’s a horse,” UNC head coach Scott Forbes said Pence. “And that guy Helmers who came in for them (LSU) was really good.”
Helmers, the second of four Tigers’ relievers, had the finest performance of his career in his final college game.
He threw 5.2 scoreless innings facing 21 batters, allowing two hits with four strikeouts and two walks. Helmers got the Tigers to the UNC eighth where senior reliever Nate Ackenhausen struck out the last three batters after Helmers opened the inning with a walk.
“Nobody wants to walk away with tears in their eyes,” Helmers said. “But it means a lot to me to just give us a chance in those four or five innings. All I was trying to do was just give us a chance because I had the utmost confidence in whoever we turned it over to in the back end.”
Though Ackenhausen threw just 16 pitches in the eighth inning after lasting 27 pitches as LSU’s Sunday starter in an elimination game win over Wofford, Johnson thought he was playing the percentages when he called on Jump as a ninth-inning reliever to close out the victory.
Jump, operating on two days rest after throwing 101 pitches in 7.1 innings in the Tigers’ 4-3 regional opening win on Friday over Wofford, had thrown just 11 pitches as a reliever this season. It happened in the season-opener on Feb. 11 vs. VMI when he was easing back into game-action after the UCLA transfer sat out last season recovering from Tommy John arm surgery.
“I felt great about where we were at that point,” Johnson said when he sent Jump to the mound to finish off the Tar Heels. “Nate was a completely different look than him (Helmers) and Gage is completely different than both of them. We set this plan in motion before we came here. We knew that’s what we would do, but they (North Carolina executed).”
UNC third baseman Gavin Gallaher opened the top of the ninth by tagging Jump’s 2-2 pitch for a double down the left-field line.
After Madera struck out trying to execute a sacrifice bunt, nine-hole hitter shortstop Colby Wilkerson stroked another 2-2 Jump pitch for an RBI single to tie the game at 3-3.
Jump escaped further damage, but Pence held the Tigers scoreless in the bottom of the ninth, despite a single by designated hitter Hayden Travinski, the Airline High product playing in what became his final college game.
Jump retired the first two UNC batters in the top of the 10th. But LSU left the door open when Brown misplayed Johnny Castagnozzi’s drive (“I’m not quite sure what happened there,” Johnson said) to the right field warning track that turned into a double instead of an inning-ending out.
After Gallaher was intentionally walked, Madera ripped Jump’s 3-2 pitch up the middle for an RBI single that scored pinch-runner Jackson Van de Brake for what proved to be the winning run.
“He (Jump) couldn’t really land his sliders and he beat me with a couple of fastballs early in the count,” Madera said. “When I got to 3-2, I just kind of sold out for fastball. I told myself, `He’s throwing 96 (miles per hour), but I’m not going to let myself get beat by a fastball here.’ So, I just jumped on it.”
LSU had the top of its batting order coming to the plate in the bottom of the 10th, hoping to conjure a rally that had been a staple of the Tigers’ late-season run over the last 13 games dating back to a regular-season ending SEC series sweep of Ole Miss.
But with a reliever as determined and almost unhittable as Pence closing the game in front of his home crowd, LSU ran out of miracles.
Pence retired the first two batters – third baseman Tommy White and second baseman Stephen Milam — on fly balls to right field before Jones drew a full-count walk.
It brought Tigers’ cleanup hitter Josh Pearson to the plate sporting a .353 batting average in the regional with seven RBI and five extra-base hits.
He worked Pence to a 2-2 count before he drove the ball deep to center field where Honeycutt gloved it for the game’s final out.
The stunned Tigers watched UNC’s celebration from their dugout, staring glassy-eyed trying to comprehend the victory that slipped through their fingers.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” Helmers said. “But this team competed like hell. For our younger guys (returning for next year’s team), it’s just a matter of staying with that.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsemedia@gmail.com