LSU is headed to 17th College World Series

With an NCAA Super Regional sweep, No. 2 national seed LSU (53-10) earned its 17th trip to the College World Series Sunday, beating Louisiana-Lafayette, 6-3, at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.
After helping the Tigers advance to the Super Regional with a 2-0 blanking of UNC Wilmington Monday, LSU starter Jared Poché (9-1) pitched another gem Sunday. He allowed only one run on five hits with a walk and seven strikeouts.
For its opening game in Omaha, the Tigers will face either No. 7-seed TCU or Texas A&M Sunday at either 2 or 7 p.m.
“This team deserves to go to Omaha,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said in a news release. “They’ve played at a high level all year. We haven’t lost two games in a row one time the entire season. Different aspects of our team have done the job, taken turns doing the job, and it’s a very selfless team that plays well together. They genuinely like each other, and I couldn’t be more proud of a team going to Omaha. That’s where we belong, and we’re looking forward to going up there.”
For the first six innings, Poché and ULL freshman Gunner Leger held the opposition scoreless.
“Our two true freshmen came in here and just threw lights out for us, and that’s all you can ask for as a head coach,” Louisiana-Lafayette head coach Tony Robichaux said of Leger and Saturday starter Wyatt Marks. “To be able to come in here and put in two freshmen like that under the conditions we were in and keep us where they were (was impressive).”
LSU catcher Kade Scivicque broke the scoreless game in the top of the seventh with a no-doubt solo home run off the scoreboard in left field.
LSU led 1-0 as Poché finished seven innings, allowing only three hits.
“It’s definitely a dream for all these Louisiana boys that come and play at LSU,” said Poché, a Lutcher native. “I’m just kind of living in the moment right now and enjoying it.”
Mainieri said, “Jared Poché is one of those pitchers that when you give him a lead, he shifts it into another gear.”
Louisiana-Lafayette finished the season with a 42-23 mark. The team was making its second straight NCAA Super Regional appearance and fourth in school history.
The Tigers’ offense knocked Leger (6-5) out the game with two outs in the eighth. Leger walked Danny Zardon to open the frame, and Saturday night’s hero — Chris Sciambra — entered to pinch run following a standing ovation.
Sciambra moved to second on a balk when Leger stepped toward home plate on his pickoff attempt.
Though Jared Foster wasn’t able to get down a sacrifice bunt, Mark Laird singled and both runners moved up a base on a high chopper by Jake Fraley.
Bregman, who struggled to an 0-for-15 start in the NCAA Tournament, broke out his slump by chopping an 0-1 pitch over Leger’s head to score both Sciambra and Laird.
“It was unbelievable,” Bregman said. “The ‘Box’ was rocking after it. As soon as I hit it, I knew it was going to go to the middle.”
The Tigers led 3-0 when Leger headed to the dugout in favor of right hander Dylan Moore.
With two outs, Bregman immediately stole second, moving into second place on LSU’s single-season list with 37.
After Scivicque walked, Conner Hale hit a bases-clearing triple into the right field corner to give LSU a 5-0 lead.
Leger suffered the loss. In 7.2 innings, he surrendered four earned runs on five hits with one walk and four strikeouts.
To open the home half of the eighth, ULL’s Dylan Butler doubled down the left field line and advanced to third on a single by Joe Robbins.
With runners on first and third, Poché coaxed a ground ball to Hale at third. However, Hale had to wait to make the throw and second baseman Grayson Byrd’s relay to first was late, allowing Butler to cut the deficit to 5-1.
With two outs, Poché was lifted for Russell Reynolds, who, too, was pulled after walking the only batter he faced.
Lefty Zac Person earned the final out of the eighth.
LSU added an insurance run in the top of the ninth against ULL’s Greg Milhorn.
With one out, Sciambra walked, stole second and advanced to third on a pop-up by Byrd. Laird’s single to right field drove in Sciambra to give LSU a 6-1 lead.
ULL scored twice off Person in the bottom of the ninth with an RBI-triple by pinch hitter Kennon Fontenot and a sacrifice fly by Butler.
However, a pop-up to LSU’s Chris Chinea at first base sent the Tigers sprinting to the outfield for their own version of a dogpile.
Laird led LSU offensively with a 2-for-5 performance with an RBI and a run.
Fontenot finished 1-for-1 with a triple, an RBI and a run, while Butler was 1-for-1 with a double, an RBI and a run. Kyle Clement also finished 1-for-3 with an RBI.
Louisiana-Lafayette had seven hits and left seven on base.
Sciambra’s walk-off lifts LSU to game 1 win
After Louisiana-Lafayette silenced a partially-drenched sell-out crowd at Alex Box Stadium with a solo homer in the ninth inning, Sciambra answered with a walk-off shot to give the Tigers a 4-3 victory against the Ragin’ Cajuns Saturday night.
LSU managed only five hits, but Sciambra’s third home run of the season along with Jake Fraley’s two-run homer in the third inning were enough to hold off ULL. It was the Tigers’ first walk-off home run in NCAA play since Jon Zeringue beat UNC Wilmington in the NCAA Regional final June 1, 2003.
In the top of the ninth, ULL’s Brenn Conrad hit his first collegiate home run in 57 career at-bats off Alex Lange, who started for the Tigers and allowed three runs on 10 hits with 11 strikeouts and a walk. Lange left the game after one pitch in the frame with the game tied at 3.
In the bottom of the ninth, Sciambra’s line drive landed about six rows above Conrad’s home run in the right field bleachers.
“Well, first of all, Alex (Lange) kept us in that game,” Sciambra said in a news release. “We really made it way too tough on ourselves and on him to keep us in that game like that. Right whenever he gave up that swing in the top of the ninth, I started focusing my attention on — I knew I was going to get an at-bat in the ninth inning. I stopped being a fan for a second and ready to cheer him on for a complete game and got my mind ready to go up there and hit.”
Mainieri said in Saturday’s release, “I’d like to compliment UL-Lafayette for the way they played tonight. They just played tremendous. I told (ULL starting pitcher) Wyatt Marks after the game how much I thought he’d improved, and he competed really hard. His stuff was good. Jake (Fraley) put a couple of good swings on him early in the game, and then he kind of settled in and didn’t give us a lot of good pitches to hit, and when we did hit them, third baseman (Joe) Robbins just made some unbelievable plays.
“The shoe was kind of on the other foot tonight,” Mainieri said in the release. “We got outhit just like they got outhit all weekend last weekend but found a way to win. … I think Chris said it right. Alex Lange just put the team on his shoulders tonight and gave us a real chance.”
The drama missing after LSU took a 3-0 lead to the top of the sixth inning turned up a notch when ULL touched Lange for single runs in the sixth and eighth innings.
In the sixth, the Cajuns ended the shutout with three singles off Lange, including an RBI by Tyler Girouard with two outs. Lange ended the first-and-third threat by forcing a groundout.
In the eighth, a sudden rain shower wasn’t deemed hard enough for the game to be halted, as ULL mounted a two-out rally against Lange with a single by Stefan Trosclair, a walk and an RBI-double by Evan Powell that narrowed the margin to 3-2.
Lange again put out the second-and-third threat by forcing another ground ball to Bregman.
“We knew the kind of freshman (Lange) that we were going to be facing, he’s very good,” Robichaux said in a news release. “Our goal was going to stay as close to him as we could and hopefully try to make it relevant at the end when he’d start to tire and his pitch count got up. Brenn came off the bench and got the big lick for us to tie it up, and then their kid (Sciambra) came up and did what a great team does … he stepped up and got a pitch that he could hit out of the ballpark.
“He got it out and that was the difference in the ballgame,” Robichaux said. “It came down to that one pitch. We had a lot of (scoring) opportunities. Again, I’m really proud on how our true freshmen came in and slowed the game down, settled in and kept us out of our bullpen.”
In the ninth, Lange was lifted after the game-tying home run by Conrad on the first pitch he saw.
“I was able to sit on the bench and watch Lange throw to every single batter, both right-handers and left-handers,” Conrad said in a news release. “I was talking to Shug (Tyler Girouard) about it before the game, and he told me to just go up there and hit the fastball. That’s the first thing I saw, so I just went for it.”
Lange was replaced by Parker Bugg. Bugg (1-2) retired the next three batters in order to set up the walk-off drama.
With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Sciambra roped a 2-2 pitch over the right-center field wall and half way up the bleachers. After rounding the bases, he tossed his batting helmet into the air and touched home plate in the middle of a mob of teammates.
Sciambra’s jersey and undershirt were pulled off by his teammates before he was lifted in celebration.
Saturday’s win was LSU’s fifth in its postseason history with five or fewer hits, the most recent coming June 13, 2004, when the Tigers had five hits in a 4-0 win against Texas A&M in a Super Regional at The Box.
In a no-decision, Marks fanned six batters and allowed four hits and three earned runs in seven innings.
Will Bacon (6-3) suffered the loss for the Ragin’ Cajuns after relieving Marks to start the eighth inning.
“Wyatt (Marks) threw a great ballgame for us and our biggest concern was slowing the game down,” Robichaux said in a news release. “The game got a little fast (early), and as the game deepened, Wyatt got better at keeping it slower. I thought Wyatt did an outstanding job for a true freshman. He’s been very good for us all season.”
Butler finished 2-for-4 with a stolen base, while Clement also finished 2-for-4 in the loss.
Louisiana-Lafayette had 10 hits, nearly half of those doubles.
The Ragin’ Cajuns, however, left eight runners on the base paths.