• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 23, 2009 - Page: 1C

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HOOVER, Ala. — Nothing was about to come too easy for LSU when it took on South Carolina on Friday night at Regions Park with both teams staring at elimination from the Southeastern Conference tournament.

But Tigers pitcher Louis Coleman and his freshman protégé Matty Ott sure made things look simple.

Coleman put the clamps on the Gamecocks for eight innings and Ott recorded the final three outs with the bases loaded as top-seeded LSU survived South Carolina’s last-gasp uprising for a 4-1 triumph.

The victory propels the No. 2-ranked Tigers (43-16) into the semifinal round against Georgia (37-20) at 1:30 p.m. today.

LSU must beat the Bulldogs twice to advance to the championship game (3 p.m. Sunday) against either Vanderbilt or Arkansas, who meet in the first semifinal matchup at 10 a.m. today.

To stay alive and kicking, LSU leaned on the pitcher who was supposed to be the closer when the season began and the one who emerged in that role and allowed his older teammate to bolster a starting staff that needed help.

In another stellar performance, Coleman — the 2009 SEC Pitcher of the Year — was untouchable most of the night.

He gave up seven hits and a pinch-hit solo home run, but never really ran into trouble until the ninth when Whit Merrifield and DeAngelo Mack produced back-to-back leadoff singles for USC (38-21).

Friday’s performance came on the heels of Coleman’s worst outing of the season, an 8-7 LSU loss at Mississippi State — 90 miles from his hometown Schlater, Miss.

“After a rough outing last weekend back home, it felt great to go back out there and give my team a good start and a chance and put us in situation where we can still be playing (today),” Coleman said after bumping his record to 11-2, best in the SEC.

Added Tigers coach Paul Mainieri, “I can’t find any new words to say about that young man and what he has meant to our program and what he has done for our team.”

As he has all season, Coleman stayed around the strike zone and didn’t walk a hitter in eight-plus innings. He struck out six, four in the first three innings, and notched 13 outs on ground balls.

The Tigers middle-infield defense duo of second baseman DJ LeMahieu and Austin Nola provided two huge assists with a pair of double plays after the Gamecocks got their leadoff hitter on base in the first and seventh innings.