A FLAIR FOR THE DRAMATIC
IN THIS COLLEGE WORLD SERIES.
WHEN THE GAME’s ON THE LINE, LSU IS USUALLY ON TOP OF ITS GAME
You see it, in their body language.
You see it, in the late innings.
Over the last 72 hours or so, you’ve definitely seen it when the game’s gone to extra innings.
Home team, road team, it doesn’t seem to matter.
What matters is the LSU Tigers seem poised to win a seventh national championship, in this memorable College World Series, and they’ll get two chances to make that happen at Charles Schwab Field in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.
“We got outplayed tonight, and didn’t play our best baseball,” Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan said after Cade Beloso’s solo home run in the top of the 11th inning lifted LSU to yet another dramatic victory, a 4-3 triumph over the No. 2 seed Gators in Game One of the best-of-three CWS championship series.
Florida won its first three CWS games, all by a single run, to get to the championship series. The Gators had two days off after a tense 3-2 victory over TCU left them two victories short of the second national championship in school history.
LSU, on the other hand, has done it the hard way.
RECORDED 17 STRIKEOUTS
IN EIGHT INNINGS PITCHED.
IN ITS 4-3 LOSS TO THE TIGAHS.
Ever since sweeping past the University of Kentucky in an NCAA super regional in Baton Rouge, the Tigahs are starting to look like a team of destiny. They’ve got their flaws, sure, and I’m sure second-year LSU coach Jay Johnson was perplexed by his team’s struggles with base runners in scoring position in the early going against Florida on Saturday night.
Beloso, the burly LSU slugger from New Orleans, seems to have a handle on this reality.
“Baseball is a tough game,” Beloso said. “When runners get on, that’s when pitchers tend to make their best pitches. That’s when they rise to the occasion …
“But in terms of not getting the job done, no one’s freaking out about it. We’ve got to just keep playing the game and keep putting ourselves in those opportunities.”
LSU improved to 53-16 overall, and 10-1 in this memorable NCAA Tournament, in moving to within one victory of another national championship. Ty Floyd, the Tigers’ junior right-hander from Rockmart, Georgia, turned in a sensational effort to put his team on the fast track to another championship.
Still, it would be LSU’s first since 2009.
SEEMS DESTINED FOR STARDOM
IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES.
WITH A SENSATIONAL DEFENSIVE PLAY IN THE 10th.
Geauxmaha has been kind to the Tigahs over the years, but never more than this year, when Jay Johnson’s LSU squad had to come out of the losers’ bracket to advance to the finals.
LSU right-hander Paul Skenes, who figures to be one of the first four or five players taken in next month’s MLB Draft, guided the Tigers to a 6-3 victory over SEC rival Tennessee in their first game of the College World Series.
That victory sent LSU to a high-profile matchup with No. 1 seed Wake Forest, and the Demon Deacons manufactured a late run to slip past the Tigers 3-2 on Monday night.
LSU survived three elimination games in the next three days, a labyrinth if there ever was one.
Junior left-hander Nate Auckenhausen, making his first start in major college baseball, turned in six strong innings before fellow LSU southpaw Riley Cooper finished the task at hand, a 5-0 victory over Tennessee on Tuesday night.
That gave LSU another shot at No. 1-ranked Wake Forest, which was sporting a 54-10 record at the time. The Demon Deacons had not lost back-to-back games for the entire season, while LSU had dropped two of its final three SEC series before moving on to Hoover, Alabama, where the less-than-inspired Tigers went 1-2 in the conference tournament.
For teams like LSU, Florida and Tennessee, the SEC Tournament is a bit of a nuisance, because teams are trying to get their pitching rotation set for the NCAA Tournament, and the vast majority of the SEC teams there were safely in the NCAA field of 64 teams.
SATURDAY’s WINNING PITCHER.
WAS FIRED UP SATURDAY NIGHT.
I spent three days in Hoover working on an independent project that week, and the Tigers seemed none too concerned about that 1-2 showing. I introduced myself to LSU right-hander Paul Skenes, who is going to make a lot of money in professional baseball, and he assured me the Tigahs would be ready to play when it really counted.
That’s what we’ve seen over the last few days.
Beloso’s three-run home run sent the Tigers to a 5-2 victory over Wake Forest, which meant Skenes and the Demon Deacons’ ace, junior right-hander Rhett Lowder.
That game certainly lived up to its advance billing, with Skenes and Lowder throwing up one zero after another, with both of them finally departing long before LSU third baseman Tommy White ended it with a dramatic two-run home run to left field in the bottom of the 11th inning.
White turned on the first pitch thrown by Wake Forest closer Cam Minacci, yanking it over the left-field fence for a dramatic two-run homer, which sent the Tigers to the championship series with all sorts of momentum.
“We just slayed a dragon tonight,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said when it was over.
The Tigers had just one day to fall back, regroup and get ready for the championship series against Florida. Skenes isn’t likely to pitch again unless the best-of-three series goes to a third and final game on Monday night. But Ty Floyd pretty much picked up where Skenes left off on Saturday night, recording 17 strikeouts in a brilliant eight-inning effort without giving up a run.
Still, it came down to the LSU bullpen. And the Tigers’ big bats.
LSU trailed the Gatahs 3-2 on Saturday night, after Florida catcher B.T. Riopelle delivered a solo home run to left field in the sixth.
LSU went down in order in the seventh, and they were probably making extra Jello-shots at Rocco’s Pizza and Cantina — walking distance from Omaha’s Charles Schwab Field — for the Tigers’ fans to drown their sorrows after dominating the count in the bar’s “Jello-Shot Challenge.”
IS AN OMAHA TRADITION …
LSU IS OBLITERATING THE FIELD.
Tommy White and Cade Beloso had another narrative in mind.
And once again, they delivered.
White tied it up, with a mammoth, solo home run in the top of the eighth. Then, in the 11th, Beloso crushed a pitch from Florida’s Brandon Neely for a solo home run to right-center field. The Tigers couldn’t add an insurance run, but LSU left-hander Riley Cooper wouldn’t need it.
“Riley obviously did what Riley’s done here and executed at a high level,” LSU’s Jay Johnson said.
Jello-Shots for everybody!
Now the Tigers look for the seventh national championship in school history, a game that will be played in the afternoon, under the high Nebraska sky. It’s the fifth All-SEC final in CWS history, and Florida defeated the Tigers in two straight to take the national championship in 2017.
HIS TEAM TO THE NATIONAL TITLE IN 2017.
AND KEEN DEFENSIVE SKILLS AT FIRST BASE.
When I made it to Baton Rouge on a sweltering Friday afternoon earlier this month, I got to LSU’s Alex Box Stadium just in time to see Cade Beloso hold court with the media before the Tigers’ best-of-three super regional against Kentucky.
Beloso is just one of several key LSU players from Metro New Orleans, a fifth-year senior who came back from ACL surgery to make an impact in his final season of college baseball.
“We’ve been blessed to have such a great team this year,” Beloso said. “Really, for the last five years, the opportunity to play with some awesome dudes …
“(I) would take all the ups and downs, 10 years in a row. I would do this all over again, in a heartbeat. I’m embracing all of the emotions.”
The Tigers have put in the work.
They’re ready to win another national championship.
138 HOME RUNS
IN JUST 69 GAMES.
SEVENTH NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
A BIG BAT FOR THE TIGERS.
