Better Nate than never, Ackenhausen's gem keeps LSU alive in the CWS

Thirteen months to the day of his last starting pitching assignment, LSU’s Nate Ackenhausen showed Tuesday night on college baseball’s biggest stage he hasn't forgotten how to carry his team as a starter.

After making 15 relief appearances this season in his first year as a Tiger, junior college transfer Ackenhausen threw six shutout innings in his first-ever LSU start to jumpstart a 5-0 College World Series losers bracket elimination win over Tennessee in Omaha.

The fifth-seeded Tigers (50-16) stayed alive and have to beat top-seed Wake Forest twice to advance to the best two-of-three championship finals series that starts Saturday. LSU, which lost 3-2 to WFU Monday night, plays the Deacons (53-10) Wednesday at 6 p.m. If the Tigers win, the teams play one last time Thursday at 6 p.m.

Ackenhausen said he used the brisk 20 miles-per-hour wind blowing towards home plate in Charles Schwab Field to his advantage.

“I know with the wind blowing in how hard it is to hit a ball out of here,” Ackenhausen said. “I get a 2-0 changeup call and I'd just throw it down the middle and say, let them put it in play because you've seen some balls hit today that were about 108 off the bat and they were kind of at the warning track. I just pitched with confidence. I had confidence in my defense behind me.”

LSU reliever and Ackenhausen’s roommate Riley Cooper, who closed the Tigers’ 6-3 CWS-opening win over Tennessee Saturday, pitched the final three shutout innings. LSU center fielder Dylan Crews blasted a two-run homer in the ninth after the Tigers scraped together a 3-0 lead with runs in the first, sixth and eighth innings off a parade of six Tennessee pitchers.

“Great night for our program,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson. “It starts and ends on the mound. And the two big left-handers here executed at a really, really high level.”

Heading into the game, there was no doubt Tennessee (44-22) would send Drew Beam to the mound as its starting pitcher. Beam was the Vols’ third-game starter in most SEC regular season series and had been solid in the NCAA tournament.

But after LSU was forced to use late-season starter Thatcher Hurd in a relief role in Monday’s loss to WFU, Tigers’ head coach Johnson was faced with the prospect of finding a reliever who could step into a starting role vs. the Vols and get LSU off to a good start.

He informed Ackenhausen Tuesday morning he was the chosen one.

“Coach texted me at 8:56,” Ackenhausen said. “I didn't respond until 11:10. I was sleeping in a little bit. I think I just texted him, `I'll give it all I got.’"

Boy, did he ever.

“The thought really was three innings, 60 pitches, my initial target was 12 hitters,” Johnson said of what he originally hoped how long Ackenhausen could effectively last against the Vols. “And he obviously accomplished a lot more than that.”

Ackenhausen’s last assignment as a starter was May 20, 2022 in the final start of his two-year career at Eastern Oklahoma State Community College. He was the losing pitcher against Crowder College in a seven-inning stint in the NJCAA South Central District tournament played at Kirsch-Rooney Stadium in New Orleans.

One of the reasons Johnson chose to start Ackenhausen, who entered Tuesday’s game with 3.63 ERA and a 2-0 record in 22.1 innings, was because LSU was 13-2 this season in the games Ackenhausen appeared.

“I just don't see it as like a Cinderella (story) thing because he's one of the most important parts of our pitching staff,” Johnson said of Ackenhausen. “He was down with a sore shoulder the beginning of conference play, and that was right through Arkansas, Tennessee.

“Then there was a little bit of working his way back. A key outing was when we extended him at the SEC tournament against South Carolina, and we got him to 63 or 64 pitches. Had a good outing in a Regional against Oregon State.

"And then fortunately in the Super Regional, we won in two games, but he was kind of that piece that was going to be a part of a game three if we needed it.”

Ackenhausen, whose longest previous performance this season was 3.2 innings vs. South Carolina in the SEC tourney, retired 18 of 24 Vols’ batters before he was removed after opening UT's seventh hitting first baseman Blake Burke with a pitch.

The big lefty exited to a standing ovation. He gave up just four hits (three singles and a double), struck out seven, issued no walks and stranded five Vols’ runners using a double play ball in the second and inning-ending third out fly balls to Crews in the third and to right fielder Brayden Jobert in the fifth.

In his postgame press conference, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello tipped his hat to Ackenhausen.

“His stuff has always been difficult to hit,” Vitello said. “Usually where it's kind of gone awry with him is with command. He had excellent command at the start of the game.

“Then as the game went on a little bit, there were some mistakes he made out of the zone, whether it be hit by pitch or something like that, but then he kept his composure, regathered and did well.”

The Tigers, batting in the top of the first, began chopping wood immediately against Tennessee starter Beam.

LSU leadoff hitter Crews walked on a 3-2 pitch, advanced to second base on a passed ball, went to third on first baseman Tre’ Morgan’s one-out single and scored on designated hitter Cade Beloso’s RBI single.

After the Tigers’ lone run in the first, UT’s Beam dug in his heels holding LSU to two hits and no runs for four consecutive innings while striking out 7 of 14 batters.

LSU finally broke through when Morgan led off the sixth inning with a double into the left-field corner. Tigers’ second baseman Gavin Dugas laid down a perfect safety squeeze bunt, beating it out for a single and forcing a throwing error by UT third baseman Zane Denton that scored Morgan for a 2-0 LSU lead.

The Tigers increased their lead to 3-0 in the eighth. In an inning Tennessee used three pitchers trying to keep the LSU offense from exploding, the Tigers loaded the bases with Morgan scoring on a wild pitch.

Crews, who was just 2 for 8 with no RBIs and one run in LSU’s first two CWS games, put the exclamation mark on a 2 for 4 plate performance with his ninth-inning homer after right fielder Josh Pearson opened the inning with a walk.

“The wind was pushing some balls back into play today,” Crews said. “But it was good to kind of just get one out at the right moment and put us up a couple more runs in the ninth. Just extend the lead.”

That left Cooper to polish off the Vols for the game’s final three outs.

And now, the Tigers face Wake Forest again and Johnson has to once more find pitchers who can step up and perform. He knows if LSU wins Wednesday to set up a Thursday winner-advance-to-the-finals showdown vs. WFU, the Tigers will have flame-throwing ace Paul Skenes available to start that game.

“They're legit,” Johnson said of WFU. “I thought (WFU starting pitcher Josh Hartle) threw an outstanding game (in Monday’s one-run win over LSU). I thought their pen was good. They have more guys that they can go to. Offense, they have their way. They do their thing really, really well.”