BATON ROUGE, La. — LSU earned a series win Saturday, but not the bigger prizes off the top shelf that it had been hoping for.

The Tigers beat Florida 7-3 in the first half of a doubleheader, but lost the second game 6-2 and missed out on a chance to earn a first-round bye in the upcoming Southeastern Conference Tournament.

LSU (39-17, 19-11 SEC) wound up as the No. 5 seed and will play 12th-seeded Tennessee in a single-elimination game Tuesday night in Hoover, Ala.

LSU completed the regular season with 11 wins in its final 12 games. It also won 17 of its final 23 SEC games after a 2-5 start in league play.

“Our team has grown so much over the past couple of months, and we’re looking certainly forward to the postseason,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “We talked about finishing strong and winning our final 12 games of the season, and we nearly pulled it off, winning 11 in a row. We’ll go to the SEC Tournament, try to win as many games as we can, and put ourselves in the best possible position for the NCAA Tournament.”

Florida (44-11, 19-10) is the No. 4 seed and earned the last of the four first-round byes. It will play the LSU-Tennessee winner in the double-elimination round that starts Wednesday.

“It’s not the weekend we wanted, but realistically when you get a rainout and only get 2 1/3 out of your All-American Friday night starter and your next starter who’s obviously very talented you only get two innings because he’s not feeling good, you have to go to your bullpen early and have to manage things a little bit differently. It is what it is,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan saud. “Credit LSU. They played very, very well this weekend. I’m sure we have a pretty good chance of seeing them again on Wednesday.”

Jonathan India hit a bases-clearing double in the fifth inning of Saturday’s second game to give Florida a 5-1 lead. He later scored on a sacrifice fly by J.J. Schwarz.

Jake Fraley homered for LSU.

In game one of the doubleheader, Alex Lange, Riley Smith and Parker Bugg each pitched three solid innings to lead LSU to the 7-3 win. Lange and Bugg didn’t allow a run in their stints. Smith (2-0) gave up three runs on four hits, but got the win. Bugg earned his third save of the season.

Greg Deichmann went 2-for-4 with a double and four RBIs for the Tigers. His bases-clearing double was part of a five-run rally in the fifth inning that put LSU ahead 7-1.