The Auburn baseball team came into Saturday needing a win over LSU and then some help from Kentucky and Florida in order to make the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama.
Unfortunately for Sunny Golloway and company, it got neither.
The Tigers were eliminated from postseason contention Saturday after an 8-1 home loss to LSU, a result that proved meaningless after Georgia and Tennessee got wins earlier in the day to seal the final SEC Tournament positions.
"I know that they're disappointed, especially since they're not getting to play in the SEC Tournament and all the optimism we had about going to the NCAA Tournament," Golloway said. "My heart hurts for them a little bit. It's a good group of guys leaving."
In the season-ending sweep, the No. 8 ranked LSU Tigers outscored Auburn 29-4 over three games.
After the game, Golloway said he's never been a part of a team that finished so poorly.
"Of all the teams that I've coached in the last 16 years, this without a doubt is the worst that we've been playing at the end of the year," Golloway said. "We were playing our worst baseball this weekend. That's on me."
Starter Dillon Ortman (9-5) started Saturday's game just two days after he started and got shelled for six runs in Thursday night's loss against LSU.
The result for the senior Saturday afternoon was about the same, if only slightly less damaging: four innings, seven hits and three earned runs.
"It was a rollercoaster ride this year," Ortman said. "This season has been a rough one, but there's always next year for some of these guys."
The three runs off Ortman were all LSU could manage until the seventh, when the Bayou Bengals exploded for five runs to put the game, and Hoover, well out of reach.
"I feel like we played pretty tight all year," senior Damek Tomscha said. "Baseball is supposed to be fun, but I think we put a little bit more pressure on us than we should have. You can't really play baseball like that."
With the offseason looming, Golloway said he had no regrets about the way his first season on the Plains had ended, saying that the foundation for an Omaha-caliber program had been laid.
"We fought our tails off from day one,"Golloway said. "We tried everything and exhausted every effort."
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