Then-Notre Dame baseball coach Paul Mainieri, faced with the prospect of playing at No. 1 Florida State in the 2002 NCAA Super Regionals against a team that had a 25-game win streak, did the unthinkable.

Two of the pitchers in his starting rotation were freshmen Grant Johnson and Chris Niesel.

Lambs led to slaughter? Hardly. Johnson was the winning pitcher in game 1 and Niesel did the same in game 3 as Mainieri earned his first trip ever to Omaha.

“That was the year I started to de-emphasize the importance of experience, talent usually is better than having experience,” said now-LSU coach Mainieri, who’s stepping into a time machine this weekend and traveling back 17 years against the same opponent.

For the first time in Mainieri’s 13 seasons guiding the Tigers, he’s starting freshmen pitchers in games 1 and 2 of the Super Regional against Florida State that starts Saturday at 2 p.m. in Alex Box Stadium.

Cole Henry gets the nod in the opener with Landon Marceaux on the mound for Sunday’s game 2 set for 5 p.m. If there is a game 3 on Monday at 7:30, third-year sophomore Eric Walker will start.

Why Henry in game 1 and Marceaux in game 2?

“I really don’t have a good answer for you,” Mainieri said. “Henry and Marceaux are our best starting pitchers. So regardless of their ages, you run them out there and see what they can do.

“It’s nice having both able to start. They’re not only our future, but our present, which is why we’re giving them the ball.”

Because Henry (4-2, 3.51 ERA) and Marceaux (5-2, 4.64) have both battled arm problems, it wasn’t until last week’s Baton Rouge Regional that both started on the same weekend.

Marceaux started in the 17-3 opening victory over Stoney Brook, earning the win with a five-inning, two-run performance. Henry followed the next night throwing a two-hit shutout in five innings of the Tigers’ 8-4 win over Southern Mississippi.

No one really said a word last week about Mainieri starting freshmen pitchers on consecutive nights. Yet, does it seem risky against a Florida State team that averaged 11.6 runs and 15 hits in its three games to win the Athens Regional?

Not really. Because as unflappable and effective as roommates Henry and Marceaux have been – “Both those guys are huge competitors,” LSU catcher Saul Garza said – Mainieri’s insurance policy is a bullpen featuring three flame-throwing closers, two solid middle relievers and a two or three other arms who can put out fires with one-inning performances.

“I sometimes pinch myself thinking about it,” Mainieri said. “This is as strong a bullpen as I can ever remember having.”

It’s why this series is a contrast of pitching philosophies.

In the Athens Regional, Florida State starting pitchers Drew Parrish, CJ Van Eyk and Conor Grady lasted five, eight and seven innings respectively. FSU used four relievers in five appearances.

Compare that with LSU in the Baton Rouge Regionals where starters Marceaux, Henry and Walker went five, five and 4.2 innings respectively. The Tigers employed eight relievers in nine appearances.

In LSU’s last 11 games dating back to the regular-season ending Auburn series, the Tigers have had 30 relief appearances from 11 pitchers combining for 58.1 innings with a 3.25 ERA. Take away LSU’s 13-4 SEC Tournament-ending loss to Vanderbilt when the Tigers ran out of top-shelf relievers, and the ERA drops to 2.47 in 54.1 innings.

LSU has just two pitchers in a game each – Henry and Zack Hess when he was a starter early in the year before being moved to bullpen in early May – who have lasted eight innings in an outing.

The Tigers’ rash of pitching injuries has led to more abbreviated outings for starters than Mainieri and pitching Alan Dunn would have preferred.

But there’s also the fact four of LSU’s top relievers have started games this year and it’s obvious in each case the player is better coming out of the bullpen.

Mix those facts together and one of the Tigers’ obvious weaknesses is it doesn’t four solid starting pitchers, which is almost a requirement for a postseason run.

Yet because of a bullpen that has 93 to 98 miles per hour throwers in Hess, Todd Peterson, Devin Fontenot and Matthew Beck, LSU is two wins away from Omaha.

But to get those last couple of victories, the Tigers will need Henry and Marceaux, a pair of 19-year-old hurlers, to handle the biggest pressure situations of their young careers.

“This is what we dreamed about when we first met each other, roomed with each other in the summer and worked out every day,” Henry said of he and Marceaux’s goal to have a dramatic first-year impact. “Now, it’s starting to happen and we’ve got to finish it off.”