Jay Johnson explains being ejected after balk call goes against LSU

The SEC Baseball Tournament delivered on Saturday afternoon, with some wild sequences unfolding during LSU‘s win over South Carolina — sending the Tigers to the championship game. Head coach Jay Johnson did not get to see a lot of the madness, being ejected from the game in the top of the 10th inning. He was in the clubhouse hallway, not even watching Steven Milam hit a walk-off home run.

Johnson was ejected due to South Carolina being awarded a run after an attempt to steal home. The umpiring crew determined LSU catcher Alex Milazzo interfered on the play, giving the Gamecocks the lead at the time. Understandably, Johnson was not too thrilled with the decision and got tossed from the game.

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He decided to quickly leave the field, explaining his decision. Johnson was told there could be a suspension in play if he stuck around and argued. Not wanting to take any risks heading into the NCAA Tournament, Johnson got out of there.

“No, I’m not messing with anything,” Johnson said during a postgame interview with SEC Network. “We got too much important baseball coming tomorrow and the NCAA Tournament… The umpire crew, once I was ejected, it was like ‘You got to leave right now. Otherwise, there’s going to be a suspension.’ We fought too hard to get to this position. So I basically walked off the field.”

There will be plenty of conversation about the play at home plate. One, at the time, seemingly cost LSU the game and sent them packing from Hoover early. Was it not for Milam’s walk-off home run, there would have been some angry people wearing purple and gold.

Johnson does not really care about the call, though. He wants all the focus to be on his team’s success over the previous few weeks. An SEC championship is now on the line with the chance to repeat as national champions in the near future.

If there is a team you do not want to see in your regional on Selection Monday, it’s LSU.

“It doesn’t matter,” Johnson said on the balk call. “Because these guys are tough. Toughness is defined by this. We were 3-12 in SEC play. We just won our 40th game of the season and the NCAA Tournament hasn’t started yet. That’s toughness. We’re playing better than anybody in the country right now.”