A College World Series team built with talent, love and unselfishness

Until you realize there is one more mountain to scale, which is exactly where LSU’s baseball team is today after Sunday’s NCAA Super Regional with an 8-3 win over Kentucky that advanced the Tigers to College World Series starting Friday in Omaha.

It's LSU’s 19th CWS trip as the six-time national champion Tigers seek their first title since 2009. They'll open play Saturday at 6 p.m. against Tennessee. The Vols, who lost two of three games at LSU season, won a Super Regional title late Monday night 5-0 at Southern Miss.

The LSU program and fan base have been conditioned to annually spend part of June in Omaha. Anything short of that is a disappointment, which is why the Tigers celebrated long and hard on the Alex Box Stadium field after outscoring Kentucky 22-3 in a two-game sweep.

“This is what I’m dreamed about, this is what I came here for, to play in Omaha,” LSU two-time first-team All-American center fielder Dylan Crews said.

He was a projected 2020 first-round major league draft choice who signed with LSU after removing his name from the draft. He felt the Tigers' program had the resources to make him a complete player and give him a better chance to be successful when he expects to be the first player taken in the July's MLB draft.

While Crews has been the figurehead of the LSU program since he stepped on campus and one of the reasons Jay Johnson left Arizona to become LSU’s head coach last season, the 48-15 Tigers are headed to Omaha for one overriding reason.

They are an unselfish team with players reveling in each other’s success because they know everyone’s trials and tribulations filled with triumphs and struggles.

They recognize the injuries that fifth-year seniors designated hitter Cade Beloso and second baseman Gavin Dugas and redshirt senior catcher Hayden Travinski have overcome throughout their careers, appreciating the trio choosing to return for one more season because they believed this squad could be special.

Beloso’s 14th homer of the season Sunday that gave LSU a 4-1 lead – “I blacked out running the bases after I hit it,” he said – came a year after he sat out the entire 2022 season when he tore an ACL minutes before the season-opener while firing up his teammates in their pregame program scrum ritual.

Dugas, who leads the SEC in hit-by-pitches with 30, has produced more clutch career hits than anyone on the team. This season's additions are his ninth-inning game-winning three-run homer at Texas and his game-tying eighth-inning grand slam at South Carolina.

Travinski, who battled his way through injuries back into the starting lineup for the second half of SEC play, hit a game-winning two-out, two-strike, pinch-hit three-run ninth-inning homer at Ole Miss. It was the first of Travinski’s 10 homers this season, including two in the NCAA tournament.

Then, there’s the junior trio of two-time SEC Player of the Year Crews, shortstop Jordan Thompson and first baseman/left fielder Tre’ Morgan.

Crews’ .380 188-game LSU career batting average including .434 in 63 games this season – “He’s the best baseball player I’ve ever seen,” Johnson said – speaks volumes about his talent and tireless work ethic.

Thompson, an error waiting to happen at the start of last season because he was still recovering from off-season knee surgery, invested his sweat equity to transform into one of college baseball’s best shortstops.

He punctuated that in Sunday's second inning with his backhand grab on the outfield grass of UK right fielder Nolan McCarthy’s scorching grounder. Thompson fired a fallaway jump throw across the diamond to a stretching Morgan for the out.

Morgan, arguably the best defensive first baseman in LSU history, was unselfish enough to move to left field for most of this season so Johnson could get freshman power hitter Jared Jones in the starting lineup at first base.

But the eventual return to last year's form by sophomore left fielder Josh Pearson and a late-season batting struggle by Jones moved Morgan back to first in the NCAA tourney.

And once again, he has been money.

The last three hitters in LSU’s batting order – junior right fielder Brayden Jobert, Thompson and Pearson – have been holy hitting terrors. That trio has batted a collective .352 in the NCAA tourney with 14 RBIs and three homers.

And when junior catcher Alex Milazzo has gotten starts at the back of the order, he's improved his batting average to a career-best .293 this season.

Then there are the transfer portal acquisitions, led by Air Force pitcher Paul Skenes and North Carolina State third baseman Tommy White.

What Skenes has done this season as college baseball’s best pitcher leading the nation in strikeouts with a 100 plus m.p.h. fastball and pinpoint control defies description.

Skenes has left his teammates (“He’s the best pitcher I’ve seen in my life,” Crews said), opposing coaches and players (“He’s pitching in the wrong league. . he needs to be in the National or American League,” Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle said) and most of all Johnson in awe.

“I’ve never had a pitcher like that where you know what you’re going to get (every time he starts),” Johnson said. “It helps simplifies some of the decisions I make within the game and within a weekend.”

White brought power hitting and swagger to the Tigers from the ACC where last season he led the NCAA in homers by a freshman. This year, he’s tied for second nationally in RBI and feasting by batting directly behind Crews who has been on base in all 63 games this season.

“Their 1-2 (Crews, White at the top of LSU’s batting order) is as good as anybody maybe ever,” Kentucky reliever Darren Williams said.

Then there are the freshmen who haven’t played like freshmen. Relievers Gavin Guidry and Griffin Herring, outfielders Jones and Paxton Kling and catcher Brady Neal (until he suffered a season-ending injury early in SEC play) are all future starters.

Guidry’s work as LSU’s closer – a 3-0 record with three saves, a 3.42 ERA and 36 strikeouts with 11 walks in 23.2 innings – has been stunning.

“Gavin’s got `it’,” Johnson said. “After we won the regional and the news broke about (LSU pitching coach) Wes (Johnson being named Georgia’s head coach), Gavin popped his head in my office. He said, `It doesn’t matter who’s calling the pitch, I’ll strike everybody out anyways.’”

There’s the group of pitchers who started slowly because of struggles or injuries and improved as the season progressed – starters Ty Floyd and UCLA transfer Thatcher Hurd, junior college transfer Nate Ackenhausen overcoming a strained hamstring, starter/reliever Javen Coleman battling back from Tommy John surgery and reliever Riley Cooper who has 52 career appearances in two seasons at LSU after making the move from Arizona with Johnson.

Finally, there’s Johnson.

He studies film, analytics and gameday weather reports like a meteorologist in hurricane season, trying to leave nothing to chance. Through visualization and other tricks of the trade he's taught the Tigers, LSU’s discipline at the plate is second to none, a testament to the Tigers’ ranking second nationally in on-base percentage.

"Professional at-bats" may be the most used phrase of Johnson-speak.

He’s also had back-to-back No. 1 nationally ranked recruiting classes in his first two years, creating many lineup options with a talent overload.

For some coaches, it might be a problem managing a long list of egos. But Johnson also removed that equation.

“There was a tipping point last year,” Johnson recalled, “where it's like if you're going to be on this roster in 2023, you need to be a great person and a good player with great character.

“All these guys that are still here, we chose them to be here right now. We chose a bunch of them to join forces with them. And then it was `That's a pretty good roster, how are you going to manage all that?’

“They made this a no-drama deal. We are a team in every sense of the word. They love each other. They support each other. We've had guys start and then get taken out of the lineup that had the biggest smiles on their faces. We had guys that weren't playing that were playing. And it hasn't mattered who.

“It's just been LSU. Us. Our team. These guys have always placed the needs of the team above their own. That's what I'm the most proud of.”