The LSU tigers are the standard when it comes to college baseball as they have made 18 Appearances at the College World Series and won 6 National Championships leading up to this season. For the 7th time in program history the LSU Tigers Baseball program have tasted victory in Omaha as they hoist the trophy after after a 14 year drought.
The College World Series started off smoothly with the Tigers beat the Tennessee Vols by the score of 6-3 with Paul Skenes on the mound. On the Monday the Tigers lost a 2-3 game to the No.1 national seed Wake Forest 2-3 where Ty Floyd had a 10 strikeout performance in 5.0 innings.
The Tigers found themselves in the losers bracket and squaring up against Tennessee for a 2nd time and won by a score of 5-0 as Nate Ackenhausen and Riley Cooper put up 9.0 innings of work and only gave up 1 walk and struck out 9. LSU though would now have to beat the No.1 seed twice to move on to the College World Series Finals.
In the first matchup Javen Coleman and Blake Money struggled early with 4 walks and not making it out of the 2nd inning combined. In came Griffin Herring who was nails with 6 punchouts in 4.2 innings. In the 3rd inning the tigers had 4 runs on 2 hits with one of them being a 3 run blast by Cade Beloso. Gavin Guidry entered in the 7th inning and between him and Riley Cooper they added another 4 strikeouts. The Tigers won that matchup by a score of 5-2.
The most anticipated matchup of the season was Skenes versus Lowder in the matchup that would get one team to the finals and it was no doubt a pitchers duel. Paul Skenes went 8.0 innings and only allowed 2 hits while fanning 9 and Lowder exited after 7.0 innings pitched giving up 3 hits and fanning 6 batters. At the time both pitchers left the game it was still scoreless as both pitchers left the game. Trey Morgan made an all-time defensive play charging home plate and flicking the ball to Milazzo for the tagout to prevent the demon deacons from getting on the board. Then pen from both teams continued the pitching dominance with Thatcher Hurd putting up 3 scoreless innings. The bottom of the 11th started with Dylan Crews singling to to left and was followed up by a Tommy Tanks walk-off homer to left field.
The Tigers would now square up with the Florida Gators who ended the Tigers last attempt at title No.7 in 2017. Game 1 did not disappoint as Ty Floyd was money as he struck out 17 gator batters in 8.0 innings while only allowing 1 free pass as the Tigers won that game 4-3. Game 2 was not as pretty for the LSU Tigers as they allowed 24 runs on 23 hits, 6 walks and 5 errors as the Gators hit 6 homeruns.
For Game 3 of the series everyone wondered when and if we would see Paul Skenes. Thatcher Hurd would get the start and gave up a 2 run dinger in the bottom of the first inning giving the Tigers flashbacks to Sunday. After that it was all Tigers a they would force Jack Caglianone out of the game in the 2nd inning as they went on a tear, scoring 6 runs on 5 hits as the struggling Jordan Thompson got redemption driving in the first run for the Tigers after having a very rough go at it in Omaha, only having 1 hit in 30 at batsand committing 3 errors the day before. Thompson ended the game going 2 for 5 with 3 RBIs.
Thatcher Hurd would give the Tigers 6.0 innings with 7 strikouts before turning things over to Riley Cooper for the 7th and Gavin Guidry for the 8th . The Tigers headed to the Top of the 9th with a 14-4 lead . Dylan Crews would take his last at bat as a Tiger and would single up the middle going 4 for 6 with 3 runs scored and 1 RBI as the Tigers would continue to pile on the runs as they went to the bottom of the 9th inning with an 18-4 lead with freshman Gavin Guidry on the mound as he would close the season out with a strikeout.
THE TIGERS ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS SO SMASH THE LIKE AND LEAVE A GEAUX TIGERS !!!
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