LSU wins Baton Rouge Regional, set to open Super Regional at home
LSU is hosting a Super Regional next weekend.
No, this is not fake news. You read correctly.
LSU’s hard-fought 6-4 victory over Southern Miss to win the Baton Rouge Regional Sunday night in Alex Box Stadium, paired with Florida State beating Georgia for the second time in two days to capture the Athens Regional Sunday afternoon, accomplished what seemed impossible just a few days ago.
An LSU vs. Florida State Super Regional in Baton Rouge for the right to advance to the College World Series.
While the Seminoles outscored the Bulldogs by combined 22-4 including Sunday’s 10-1 win, the Tigers had a considerably tougher time finally putting away the pesky Golden Eagles on a night LSU shortstop Antoine Duplantis became the school's all-time hits leader.
After USM erased a 3-1 LSU lead with a three-run fifth inning for a 4-3 edge, Tigers’ relievers Matthew Beck, Trent Vietmeier and Devin Fontenot blanked USM in the final four innings.
LSU’s three-run seventh inning, keyed by center fielder Zach Watson’s two-RBI single and catcher Saul Garza’s RBI double, provided the Tigers (40-24) with their margin of victory.
In the process, LSU, which finished fifth in the SEC in the regular season after being ravaged by pitching injuries, sent a message.
"A lot of people forget this team was the preseason No. 1 team," LSU shortstop Josh Smith said of the Tigers. "It's a really good team. This team, the whole year we've known we're good. We knew if we got some pitchers back healthy that we'd have a chance to go a long way. A lot of people doubted us a bit, so to get back up and host a super regional is pretty awesome."
LSU coach Paul Mainieri was hoping for an easier game from the Golden Eagles (40-21) after the Tigers struggled to record an 8-4 win over USM Saturday when LSU blew a four-run lead.
Manieri thought Southern Miss might be fatigued after scoring seven runs in the last two innings to beat Arizona State 13-12 in the Sunday afternoon elimination game.
"They (USM) tested us both games," Mainieri said. "Sometimes having to grind your way to victories is more beneficial than blowing teams out. Last (Saturday) night after we lost the lead and rallied back, I told our team `this is NCAA tournament baseball. Nothing is going to come easy. There are no gimmes left on the schedule, so you might as well grit your teeth and fight through anything that comes your way."
Even with all the spent energy vs. Arizona State, Southern Miss pushed LSU to the limit.
"We were in the game and had some opportunities to hold the lead and even chip back into it," USM coach Scott Berry said. "But LSU was just a little too much for us. While we lost, I feel like we won as a group and how we came out and competed."
The well-rested Tigers were confident in their starting pitcher, going with regular SEC rotation starter third-year sophomore Eric Walker on the mound.
But Berry had to dig deep looking for a fresh, reliable starting arm. He decided on little-used sophomore left-hander Josh Lewis, who had just 23 innings and one start to his credit this season.
As it played out, Lewis, who once threw 170-plus pitches in a game as a junior college hurler, went deeper in the game than Walker.
Pitching in his first NCAA tourney game since suffering an arm injury against Oregon State in the 2017 College World Series, Walker sailed through the first four innings, sans a Gabe Montenegro first-pitch solo homer that reduced LSU’s lead to 3-1.
The Tigers had scored on all their runs in the first and second innings with leadoff hitter Smith twice cracking the first pitch he was offered. He launched Lewis’ opening throw of the game for a solo homer into the right field stands, then banged a two-RBI triple in the second.
"The first pitch of the game most of the time is a fastball, and I was just sitting on it," Smith said. "I wasn't trying to do much with it, thinking of (hitting) something up the middle. I happened to get under it a bit. On the second at-bat, I figured they wouldn't throw a first-pitch fastball again. I was sitting on the slider and he threw a slider and I tried to go the other way with it."
But as Lewis settled, shutting out the Tigers in the next three innings allowing no hits and retiring 9-of-12 batters, Walker couldn’t get out of a 32-pitch fifth inning when USM scored three runs to grab a 4-3 lead.
And the Golden Eagles could have had more.
After Matthew Guidry’s two-out RBI single off LSU reliever Matthew Beck produced the go-ahead run (that was charged to Walker), Beck walked Hunter Slater to load the bases for USM’s all-time leading home run hitter Matt Wallner.
Beck and Wallner engaged in a nine-pitch battle before Wallner struck out swinging on Beck’s 78 miles per hour 3-2 curve ball.
After LSU reliever Trent Vietmeyer entered the USM sixth and threw just 10 pitches induce three straight fly balls, the Tigers loaded the bases in its half of the sixth but couldn’t score.
Undetered, LSU finally chased USM starter Lewis when Duplantis and Daniel Cabrera opened the LSU seventh with consecutive singles as Duplantis advanced to third and Cabrera to second.
Then, the Tigers put USM reliever Jarod Wright in their gunsights and went to work.
Wright lasted four pitches as Watson slapped his two-RBI single and then scored on Garza’s RBI double off the bottom of the right-center field wall for 6-4 lead with no outs.
Finally, lefty USM senior Adam Jackson chilled the Tigers forcing three consecutive ground outs to end LSU’s three-run rally.
Fontenot, the Tigers’ final reliever of the night, danced LSU out of trouble in the USM eighth. With the runners on second and third, he struck out Cole Donaldson for the second out and forced Hunter LeBlanc to ground out to Tigers’ first baseman Chris Reid.
USM managed just one base runner in its final at-bat in ninth as the Tigers advanced to their Super Regional showdown with Florida State.
LSU and Florida State are 9-9 against each other, but the Tigers have won four of the last five meetings including two in 2017 College World Series. LSU edged FSU 5-4 in an opening round game and then sent the Seminoles home with a 7-4 victory in an elimination game.
"It's going to be an epic matchup, two of the bluebloods of college baseball in a Super Regional," Mainieri said.
The last and only time Florida State played in Baton Rouge was in 1966 when the Tigers won a pair of games.
While the Tigers are ecstatic to host – it was something they couldn’t conceive just a few days ago when regional play started – they will face an inspired FSU team on a mission.
Seminoles’ coach Mike Martin, who has taken his team to NCAA tournament teams (including 16 College World Series appearances) in all of his 40 seasons guiding the FSU program, is retiring at season’s end.
Martin, 75, has never won a national title though the Semimoles finished as runners-up in 1986 and 1999.
"I'm a big Mike Martin fan and I've been one all my life," Mainieri said.