Box Score

BATON ROUGE, La. – Leading by two runs entering the seventh-inning stretch, Southeastern Louisiana dropped a heartbreaking 8-4 decision to LSU, the No. 8 national seed, Friday at Alex Box Stadium.

Southeastern (37-24) committed three errors in the final two innings and surrendered six runs, four unearned, falling to the Tigers in the school's first NCAA postseason appearance since 1994.

"Overall, I thought we competed the way we were supposed to," Riser said. "We went out there, we battled. Obviously, we had the one inning that got away from us a little bit, but besides that… I'm proud of the kids. They went out there and competed from pitch one to the last pitch. Even the last at bat, we pulled a guy from the bench who hadn't had an at-bat all day. He (Jesse Buratt) came in cold, but he came in ready to go. He kept battling off pitches and battling off pitches, but obviously he ends it with a fly-out. That just shows you the tenacity of our team. It shows you the mental makeup of our team. We've got a good bunch of tough kids. They are going to continue to compete no matter what happens.

"That one inning got away from us, but I've seen teams come back from it. I've seen teams come back and win the tournament... That was my challenge to them, what team are you going to be. Are you going to continue to be the guys that we are at Southeastern and continue to mentally be tough and mentally to battle at each pitch, or are you going to fold up? I think our guys are going to rise to the challenge."

Southeastern built a 4-2 lead on home runs by Andrew Godbold and Sam Roberson, coming from behind to take the lead in the middle innings.

Godbold hit his ninth homer of the season, a two-out solo shot, in the first.

LSU (45-14-1) tied the game with a single run in the second, without a base hit, and took the lead with another run in the third.

The Lions tied the game in the fifth. Kyle Cedotal pulled a single into right field with one out and scored all the way from first on Jacob Williams double into the left-center gap.

Southeastern regained the lead an inning later. Tiger starting pitcher Jared Poche' issued a two-out walk to Daniel Midyett before Roberson yanked the ball out of the park to left-center for a two-run home run. It was the junior first baseman's fourth homer of the season.

Andro Čutura, Southeastern's starting pitcher, hit LSU shortstop Alex Bregman with a pitch to lead off the seventh. After striking out left fielder Jake Fraley, Čutura walked designated hitter Sean McMullen. Kade Scivicque, the final hitter Čutura faced, singled to left. Bregman came home to score when left fielder Kyle Cedotal misplayed the ball. Tiger first baseman Tyler Moore tied the game, greeting reliever Matt Pittari with a single to left, driving in McMullen.

LSU scored four unearned runs in the eighth off Dylan Hills for the game's deciding margin.

Tiger reliever Nate Fury (3-1), who worked two perfect innings in relief, earned the win. Hills (6-4) suffered the loss.

Southeastern will face the loser of the Houston (No. 2 seed) / Bryant (No. 3 seed) game Saturday at 2 p.m. in an elimination game.

"It starts right there with the meeting after the game," Riser said. "We go right into it, and we talk about it. We say it's a tough loss, and we had them on the ropes there until late. We just have to do a good job of flushing. That's the game of baseball. The beauty of the game of baseball is that we get to go back out there again tomorrow and play some more. It's not over yet, and that's what we keep telling our guys. It starts from now. As soon as you get on that bus, you have to flush it. You have to learn from your mistakes, move on from it and also take the good out of the game. Like I said, the best part for me, I saw our guys compete and continue to battle. If they continue to do that part, we will be ok."

Southeastern's NCAA Regional games can be heard on KSLU 90.9 FM, the flagship station of the Southeastern Sports Radio Network, as well as Northshore Broadcasting stations Kajun 107.1 FM and The Highway 104.7 FM. Streaming audio is available online while smartphone users can access audio using either the KSLU or TuneIn Radio apps. Fans can also keep up with Southeastern's Regional experience through live statistics or by following SLUathletics on Twitter. Links to audio, stats and video are available on the baseball schedule page at www.LionSports.net.

LSU 8, Southeastern La. 4 (May 30, 2014 at Baton Rouge, La.)
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Southeastern La..... 100 012 000  - 4  8 4 (37-24)
LSU....................... 011 000 24X - 8 14 0 (45-14-1)
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Pitchers: Southeastern La. - Cutura, Andro; Pittari, Matt (7); Hills, Dylan (7) and Fisher, Jameson. LSU – Poche', Jared; Person, Zac (7); Fury, Nate (8) and Scivicque, Kade; Moore, Tyler.

Win-Nate Fury (3-1) Loss-Hills, Dylan (6-4) T-2:40 A-11382
HR SLU - Godbold, Andrew (9); Roberson, Sam (4).
HR LSU - Sean McMullen (7).
Actual Attendance: 9,328


Baton Rouge Regional hosted by LSU
Friday
Game 1 - #1 LSU 8 - #4 Southeastern Louisiana 4
Game 2 - #2 Houston (44-15) vs. #3 Bryant (42-14), 7 p.m., ESPN3

Saturday
Game 3 – Southeastern Louisiana (37-24) vs. Loser Game 2, 2 p.m., ESPN3
Game 4 – Winner Game 1 vs. LSU (45-14-1), 7 p.m., ESPN3

Sunday
Game 5 – Loser Game 4 vs. Winner Game 3, 2 p.m., ESPN 3
Game 6 – Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 4, 7 p.m., ESPN3

Monday
Game 7 – Loser Game 6 vs. Winner Game 6, 7 p.m., ESPN3 (if necessary)


Quotes - Head Coach MATT RISER
On the game overall …
We've gone over this a thousand times in drills. At the end of the day, it's baseball. They are 18 to 22 year old guys that go out there and compete. Sometimes you don't get the bounce, and sometimes you do. You have to tip your hat to LSU. They did a good job. Tyler Moore did a good job with two strikes of just poking one there in the gap to tie it up (during the 7th inning). That was kind of their MO all day. They just kept getting tough at bat and made their breaks today."

On the pick-off play at first base in the 8th inning …
Just a regular pick-off move to first, just trying to check on the hit and run there. Obviously, it was in the back of his (Dylan Hills) mind that we'd do it. But at the end of the day, we just didn't execute it. It's really simple, and that's the way it goes sometimes."

On how the results would be different if it was an error free game…
"Yeah, but usually that's how it is in the game of baseball. If you play clean baseball, play fundamental baseball, you do get the win. If you look at the two runs they scored to tie it up, there was a hit-by-pitch and a walk. Then obviously the two runs to go-ahead, we threw the ball down the line. Then on the infield single, we threw another ball away. So nine times out of 10 in the game of baseball, that's why we preach fundamentals. We preach it to our guys in practice day-in and day-out. We did it all week this week as well. At the end of the day, just one inning got us."


1B SAM ROBERSON
On his 2-for-4 day at the plate …
"I was trying to get a good ball to hit and be a little patient, not try to do a little too much. Luckily, I got two good pitches two hit and capitalized. Their pitchers did very well and hit their spots. I just got two good pitches to hit and capitalized."

On his home run in the sixth inning …
"That at bat was one of the biggest in the game for our team, I believe… I was just ready for the walk or the hit or whatever would happen after that because he's (LSU pitcher Jared Poche`) is very good at keeping that behind them and coming though whenever something like that happens. So I was already ready, ready for something good to happen for us. Once I got into that situation and saw him (Daniel Midyett) take second (on a stolen base), I was thinking a single would get him in. Luckily, I good barrel on it, got underneath it and it just went."

On limiting errors…
"It's disappointing for sure, but our big thing is eliminate the big inning. It didn't happen today. It just shows that whenever that happens, it kind of bites you in the butt. But we have to move on and take tomorrow on. Take it inning-by-inning, get three outs as fast as possible and score some runs."


P ANDRO CUTURA
On his outing today…
"I didn't get too many three up, three down innings. They did a good job of hitting, and I had to work from behind a lot. I think our defense did a good job of making plays, and we battled through a lot of adversity through the game. I think we did a decent job. We had that one inning where we let it slip. Other than that, we did a good job of battling and facing adversity."

On his will to battle through adversity…
"This is my first time playing here, and I think I had a little bit of jitters in the beginning. I think I got through that pretty quickly. I fell behind in a lot of counts, and they got a lot of hits. I basically had to battle the whole time and try to make pitch for pitch in big situations. I was able to do that for most of the game but a couple slipped away."