It always hurts to lose to Gillespie, even more to be eliminated by him. At least UCLA took care of business and ended that madness.
I was worried about the decision to start Watkins, and despite his late game heroics on Friday, it's clear he still has a little more work to do getting his swing back, going hitless with 2Ks. Dean got to go yard one last time as a Tiger, sparking a rally in the next inning that fell just short of bringing us back. Landry continues to sacrifice himself to make insane catches in center, and I can only selfishly hope we get him for another year. Alsup was not as good as his last start and had no K's, but he can hardly be faulted for a 5 hit, 3 run performance. One of the few bright spots was an old-school, nearly lights out performance from Ott, who faced 7 and got 3Ks.
In the end, our lack of timely hitting is what cost us the season and this has been a problem all year. Also the lack of ability to bunt the ball at all, which Hawthorne has been hammering on about nearly all year, is a serious deficiency on this team. I'm not saying we want to become a "small ball" team, but instances like Gaudet's "attempts" at a bunt this weekend point out a glaring weakness that needs to be fixed this offseason.
You can be disappointed, but you can't be bitter. As bad as this season has been, the team could have easily just packed it in and enjoyed a nice, long summer off. But with just a slim hope of even making the SEC tourney, they gave all they could and we went much farther than expected. We play for Omaha, not Hoover, but winning the GREAT MARBLE OBELISK is nothing to sneeze at. It was a good, no, a great year for LSU baseball, it just wasn't a championship year. At least we forced'em to update the video for next season.
And what of Omaha? Certainly Bertman and Walker will be there to accept their awards. And there are quite a few Tiger fans (myself included) who are going just to give a proper goodbye to the 'Blatt and the old neighborhood. Sending the old stadium out with LSU was just too perfect of a story, and in the end, not meant to be. We'll just have to be ready to christen the new place in beer and boudin next year.
A full assessment of this season and an insanely early look ahead to next season is coming, but not until after we know who we lose to the MLB draft, which begins at 6pm today.