Saturday’s Game: LSU 7, South Carolina 3

 LSU is assuming it took care of business this weekend at South Carolina.

The Tigers beat the Gamecocks 7-3 Saturday, winning the final two games after an embarrassing 6-5 loss in Thursday’s opener.

That should be enough, head coach Jay Johnson said, to secure one of the top eight national seeds for the NCAA tournament regardless of what happens in this week’s SEC tournament.

The Tigers (42-13, 19-11 SEC) finished tied for third with Vanderbilt and will be the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament.

That earned them a double-bye for SEC tournament in Hoover, Ala., and they will be the last team to play Friday night in the single-elimination format.

“We won seven of our 10 SEC series,” Johnson said. “That’s a tremendous accomplishment.

“Our league is very difficult, and to be consistent is vital to having success. I thought we dealt with adversity well, we dealt with success well, and it was great to get this win today.”

It wasn’t always pretty.

But the Tigers got seven gutsy  innings from starter Anthony Eyanson, even though he admitted he didn’t have his best stuff.

“I was waiting for an outing like that to happen,” said Eyanson, who struggled at times with his command, but struck out five while giving up five hits and three walks. He wiggled out several jams to limit the Gamecocks to two runs in his seven innings.

“I didn’t have my best stuff and just had to grind,” Eyanson said.

The LSU bats were also slow to come around before Jared Jones hit his third home run of the series and Derek Curiel and Jake Brown had three hits apiece. Brown hit his seventh  home run of the season in the seventh and Daniel Dickinson had the go-head home run in the fifth.

The lowly Gamecocks (28-28, 6-24) led 1-0 until the fourth when Jones hit a towering home run, his 19th of the season, to tie the score.

South Carolina got it back for a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth on Beau Hollins sole home run.

LSU, however, took the lead for good in the fifth. The Tigers scored the tying run when Case Arambide scored on a bases-loaded, double-play ground ball by Jones.

Dickinson followed with a 2-run homer that finally gave LSU the lead.

Brown’s solo homer in the seven upped the lead to 5-2 and the Tigers also got single runs in the eighth and ninth on RBI singles by Derek Curiel and Steven Milam.

The Gamecocks got their final run on Henry Kaczmar’s solo homer in the bottom of the eighth.

“As we go forward into the postseason, we’re going to have to be able to close weekends out,” Johnson said. “So this was a good exercise. As I always tell the players, everything we do is training for something we’re going to face in the future.”

SEC BASEBALL TOURNAMENT

Championship game on ESPN2; all others on SEC Network.

TUESDAY

Game 1 (9:30 a.m.) — No. 16 Missouri vs. No. 9 Alabama.

Game 2 (12:30 p.m.) — No. 13 Kentucky vs. No. 12 Oklahoma.

Game 3 (4:30 p.m.) — No. 15 South Carolina vs. No. 10 Florida.

Game 4 (8 p.m.) — No. 14 Texas A&M vs. No. 11 Mississippi State.

WEDNESDAY

Game 5 (9:30 a.m.) — Winner Game 1 vs. No. 8 Tennessee.

Game 6 (12:30 p.m.) — Winner Game 2 vs. No. 5 Georgia.

Game 7 (4:30 p.m.) — Winner Game 3 vs. No. 7 Ole Miss.

Game 8 (8 p.m.) — Winner Game 4 vs. No. 6 Auburn.

THURSDAY

Game 9 (3 p.m.) — Winner Game 5 vs. No. 1 Texas.

Game 10 (6 p.m.) — Winner Game 6 vs. No. 4 Vanderbilt.

FRIDAY

GAME 11 (3 p.m.) — Winner Game 7 vs. No. 2 Arkansas.

Game 12 (6:30 p.m.) — Winner Game 8 vs. No. 3 LSU.

SATURDAY

Semifinals

Game 13 (Noon) — Winner Game 10 vs. Winner Game 9.

Game 14 (3 p.m.) — Winner Game 11 vs. Winner Game 12.

SUNDAY

Championship

Game 15 (2 p.m.) — Winner Game 13 vs. Winner Game 14.