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When Auburn scored five runs against Jared Poche' in the first inning of its second-round SEC tournament, players and coaches had to start to relax a little bit. When LSU then scored three runs in the bottom of the second, only to be answered by three Auburn runs over the next two frames, the Tigers of Opelika might have started to feel like this was their night.
It was not.
LSU erupted for six runs in the bottom of the fifth, burning through seven pitchers to finally keep the Auburn offense at bay and escape with a 9-8 win that sets them up for a possible Friday bye -- if they can win on Thursday. It was a game that featured a combined five errors and six doubles, one of those classic Hoover contests that is wild even if the baseball is not particularly crisp.
And, ultimately, it probably doesn't affect either of these teams in the NCAA tournament a great deal. LSU was already on track to get a national seed barring disaster in Hoover, and Auburn was so far away from getting a regional hosting bid that it was probably never all that realistic a goal. (They couldn't have made 16th in the RPI and would have needed some help from the selection committee to get there to begin with.)
LSU goes on to play the winner of Arkansas-Florida, which is currently scheduled to end in the year 2025. Auburn will play the loser of the nightcap in an elimination game.