WBRZ - Baton Rouge

Rachele Fico racked up a career-best 11 strikeouts but the No. 17 LSU softball team dropped a 1-0 elimination contest to Texas A&M Saturday in-front of 1,446 fans at the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional.

Rachel Mitchell, Kirsten Shortridge and Cody Trahan had their LSU (45-16) careers come to a close, while Texas A&M (43-16) advances to face Louisiana-Lafayette (44-16) in Sunday's regional final at 1 p.m.

It marked only the second time in 12 NCAA Regional appearances that LSU failed to make the final day of the event.

The Aggies notched the game's only run in the fourth inning as Meagan May knocked a solo home run over the centerfield fence on a 2-0 offering.

"I want to apologize to the Tiger faithful who have supported us all year. It was an offensive cesspool this weekend," head coach Yvette Girouard said. "We didn't score a run on the day. I thought [Rachele] Fico was magnificent. She made one bad pitch to the best hitter on their team, who we said not to make a bad pitch to."

The LSU offense mustered only a trio of singles off Melissa Dumezich, who moved to 19-3 with the win. Dumezich also fired a three-hit shutout to propel the Aggies to a 2-0 win over McNeese State earlier in the day. Rhiannon Kliesing fueled the offense with a 2-for-3 effort and two runs scored.

"I do want to give the young lady from Texas A&M [Dumezich] credit. She's thrown every inning, and she still could do this to us," Girouard said. "That's a gutsy performance by her, but it was a frustrating season in that all of our losses if you go back and look from day one, it's within a run. It's within some outs and offensively, we have to do a better job as coaches because this was our nemesis all year."

Fico surrendered only two hits en route to her second career double-figure strikeout effort. The Connecticut native posted 10 Ks against NCAA Regional participant Jacksonville State earlier this season.

The Tigers attempted a pair of two-out rallies in the sixth and seventh innings. Shortridge slapped an infield single to break up a stretch of 10 straight batters retired by Dumezich. She stole second base to match Dee Douglas' single-season mark of 45, but Ashley Applegate grounded out to end the threat.

Ashley Langoni connected for a bloop single to keep LSU alive in the seventh, but Dumezich struck out Anissa Young after a six-pitch battle to secure the 1-0 win.

"I think we made it a pitchers' game instead of a hitters' game instead, which I think happened when we went back to 43 (feet from home plate to the pitching circle)," Shortridge said. "It's just aggravating to see all the other scrappy teams getting base hits, and you wonder sometimes what are we doing wrong? Like I said, we made it a pitchers' game. Granted, both of those pitchers threw great games today, but we seem to make every pitcher look like an All-American. That has to change."