HATTIESBURG, Miss. — LSU’s Dylan Crews said he was “still in shock.” For the longest while all LSU coach Jay Johnson could say was “Wow.”

LSU baseball may have had bigger comebacks in its long NCAA tournament history,  but surely none looked more unlikely than Friday night.

But, as Johnson finally said, “We haven’t really done things dogmatic or in an orthodox manner all year.”

Why start now?

But this was a little over the top as LSU, looking helpless most of the night and trailing by seven runs, suddenly  scored 10 in the bottom of the eighth — almost made it look easy — and stormed back for a 14-11 comeback of all comebacks to beat Kennesaw State Friday night.

“That was NOT how you draw it up,” Johnson said.

It was nowhere that simple however.

The upstart Owls shelled LSU’s most reliable starter Ma’Khail Hilliard early and didn’t slow down much in pounding one of the Tigers’ best relievers, Riley Cooper.

So it was 11-4 Kennesaw after five innings.

That left it to historically eractic senior Devin Fontenot, whose appearance almost looked like an LSU white flag.

Instead ….

“We don’t win the game if Devin doesn’t come in and settle the game down,” Johnson said “It’s the best performance out of him this year when we really really really needed that.”

Fontenot threw three scoreless innings to get to the bottom of the eighth.

“I knew I had it in me,” said Fontenot. “I just wanted to give our team a chance.”

One problem: It looked like a fat chance at best with the Owls still  leading 11-4, seemingly counting down the outs.

Then came the eighth inning.

It came and came some some more and kept coming and coming.

The Tigers’ first eight batters of the inning all reached base — a walk and a hit batter started it, then six straight hits.

It was Tre’ Morgan’s 2-run single up the middle cutting the margin to 11-9 that really perked up the dugout.

“That’s when I started thinking we could do it,” Crews said. “I feel like it really gave us a chance to go out and finish it.”

It was still 11-10 when Crews came up for the second time in the inning, bases loaded.

“I’ve never been so confident that a player was going to get a big hit in my entire life than when he walked up to the plate,” Johnson said.

Crews delivered with a 2-run double to give LSU a 12-11 lead and Josh Pearson followed with a 2-run single  for insurance at 14-11.

 Paul Gervase pitched a one-hit ninth for his seventh save.

“Honestly I’m just still in shock of what just happened,’ Crews said. “When you’re down by that much and all

of a sudden you’re just able to string hits together and then look at the score board and you’re two runs away from tying the game. Incredible.”

So the Tigers advance to the key game of the regional, a date with No. 1 seed Southern Miss today at 6 p.m.

“We’d love to sit around and celebrate it because it’s a win that should be celebrated,” Johnson said. “But we’ve got to get ready to go tomorrow.”

“We’re going to use this a fuel for tomorrow,” Crews said.

Kennesaw State will face and elimination game against Army, which lost to USM 2-0 earlier Friday.

LSU will have a hard act to follow.