Poché pitches top-ranked LSU to NCAA Regional Title

Sophomore left-hander Jared Poché nearly mirrored freshman Alex Lange’s pitching gem with a six-hit, 2-0 shutout of UNC Wilmington Monday afternoon to give the LSU baseball team its 21st NCAA Regional Championship.
Poché (8-1) had a career-best eight strikeouts and finished off the Tigers’ three-game sweep of the four-team, double-elimination regional at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field that included several rain delays and schedule adjustments.
At 1:09 a.m. Sunday, tournament Most Outstanding Player, Lange, polished off a similar six-hit complete-game shutout of UNCW by the same score to put the Tigers into Monday’s championship game.
LSU pitchers threw consecutive shutouts for the first time in the program’s 190-game NCAA postseason history.
Following a two-out double in the top of the ninth by UNCW’s Corey Dick, LSU’s Parker Bugg relieved Poché to get a strikeout of the potential game-tying run and earn his third save this season.
LSU (51-10) will face Louisiana-Lafayette (42-21), which defeated Rice Monday to win the Houston Regional, in a three-game NCAA Super Regional starting Saturday at The Box.
Game times will be announced today.
“First of all, I’d like to congratulate North Carolina/Wilmington on a tremendous season,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said in a news release. “They’ve got a classy group of kids and an outstanding coach in Mark (Scalf), and they have a good ball club. They were scary. They were a scary offensive lineup, and I think that just goes to show you just how great Lange was the other night and Jared was today. To shut that team down two games in a row between our pitching and our defense was really amazing to see.
“You know, we didn’t knock the cover off the ball these last two games, but one of the things we preach to our players all the time is that — to the position players who are both the offensive and defensive players — that if you don’t have a great hitting day, you can still help your team win by making great plays on defense or drawing a clutch walk, stealing a base, whatever, and I think today was an example of that.”
Poché said, “I felt good. About the fourth inning, things kind of got out of whack. I got six balls in a row, and I’ve got to give a little bit of credit to (LSU catcher Kade) Scivicque. He kind of helped me out mechanically, and I was able to locate my fastball and curveball on both sides of the plate.
“I’d say I had good bite on my curveball, and I was able to locate it on both sides of the plate,” Poché said. “I was able to get some swings and misses.”
The Tigers scored a pair of unearned runs in the bottom of the second inning off Seahawks starter Justin Crump (1-2). With two outs, Andrew Stevenson reached on a fielding error by Dick and advanced to second on a balk.
Chris Chinea’s double down the left field line scored Stevenson from second, and Chinea came home on a single by Jake Fraley.
Both LSU and UNCW left six on base, as the Tigers’ pitching held the Seahawks to 1-for-25 batting with runners on base in its past two games.
Defensive gems by LSU shortstop Alex Bregman and Stevenson in right field helped Poché keep a clean sheet.
Below is the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional All-Tournament Team:
Pitcher: Alex Lange, LSU; Ryan Foster, UNCW
Catcher: Gavin Stupienski, UNCW
First base: Chris Chinea, LSU
Second base: Mike Garzillo, Lehigh
Third base: Conner Hale, LSU
Shortstop: Stephen Alemais, Tulane
Outfield: Andrew Stevenson, LSU; Richard Carthon, Tulane; Zach Shields UNCW
Designated hitter: Luke Dunlap, UNCW
Most Outstanding Player: Alex Lange, LSU