LSU Athletics
By Hunt Palmer
THE STORY
OMAHA, Neb.— Two of America’s best programs put on a show Wednesday night. LSU made sure there won’t be another on Thursday.
Jared Jones’s line drive clipped the top of Arkansas second baseman Cam Kozeal’s glove and trickled into centerfield as Luis Hernandez rounded third to score the decisive run to send LSU back to the College World Series Championship Series for the second time in three years.
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Earlier, Jones tied things in the eighth with a mammoth solo home run over the wall in right center.
Arkansas just kept coming, though.
An inning after pulling ahead, 3-2, the Hogs posted a two-spot in the ninth on three great swings in response to the Jones homer. With one out, Reese Robinnet lined a single to center, and Brent Iredale followed with a ringing double into the left center gap.
Jay Johnson went to Jacob Mayers to face nine-hole hitter Justin Thomas who sent a two-run single sizzling by Michael Braswell at third to give the Hogs a 5-3 lead.
The Razorbacks were then three outs from climbing all the way out of the losers’ bracket and forcing a winner-take-all game.
LSU then staged a rally they’ll talk about in Louisiana living rooms for a long, long time.
Freshman lefty Cole Gibler came out of the Arkansas pen and immediately set down John Pearson via strikeout.
Derek Curiel reached on an infield single to first, Ethan Frey drew a walk, and Steven Milam bounced into a fielders’ choice. Aloy made the decision to throw the roller to shortstop over to third base for the force instead of trying to turn a potential game-ending double play.
With runners at first and second, Luis Hernandez roped a topspin line drive to left field where Charles Davalan wobbled trying to catch or block it. Instead, it ricocheted off his shoulder and into the left field corner. That knotted the game at five and brought Jones to the plate to win it.
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Between the ball that evaded Davalan’s glove and the one moments later that skimmed to top of Kozeal’s glove, it’s not an exaggeration to suggest Arkansas lost the game by a foot and a half.
The Hogs got their now-forgotten eighth inning rally going with a pair of excellent swings off Chase Shores who looked unhittable in the seventh.
Thomas rifled a leadoff single into left center, and, after a fielder’s choice, SEC Player of the Year Wehiwa Aloy smoked a 1-2 slider at the knees for a single to left. Shores then hit Logan Maxwell with a slider to load the bases with one out in a 2-1 game.
Ryder Helfrick chopped the ball to third, and Braswell started a potential 5-4-3 double play. After recording the out at second, Daniel Dickinson fired to first and Jones couldn’t corral it. As the ball trickled away, Aloy scampered home without a throw with the go-ahead run.
Arkansas can really hit. And holding them down for eighteen innings between Saturday and Wednesday was always going to be tough.
Johnson wanted to get the ball to Shores late. He did, and Arkansas beat the big Texan. LSU just returned the favor right back to Gibler and the Hog bullpen.
LSU took its first lead in the sixth when Johnson out-maneuvered Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn.
Clinging to a 1-0 lead, Arkansas elected to intentionally walk Josh Pearson to load the bases for Chris Stanfield against ace righty Gabe Gaeckle. Johnson countered with left-handed pinch hitter Jake Brown who laced a single into the gap in leftcenter to plate a pair and give LSU the 2-1 lead.
The Tigers tried to add with a steal-and-stop play with Brown who stumbled trying to put on the brakes. He was tagged out before Pearson could dart home with an insurance run.
After Jones’s homer in the eighth that tied it, Pearson singled and Brown walked to put a pair on for Dickinson who struck out with a chance to give LSU the lead.
The starting pitchers got lost in the late-inning theatrics, but both well out-performed even the most ambitious expectations.
Arkansas’ Landon Beidelschies worked five brilliant frames of shutout baseball including a season-best nine strikeouts. He allowed a leadoff double to Frey and hit Milam in the sixth to end his evening. Both runs came home on the Brown single while he watched from the dugout.
On the other side, Zac Cowan, mired in a late-season swoon, worked 5.1 innings of one-run ball. Only Ryder Helfrick’s solo shot in the fourth blemished his longest outing of the season.
That was an all-time classic.
Two years after America’s best pitchers, Paul Skenes and Rhett Lowder, truly dazzled in this spot to set the stage for Tommy White’s homer, two of the most gifted lineups stole the headlines in Omaha.
It’s one Arkansas won’t soon recover from and LSU will have to try to use to prepare to win an eighth national championship in program history beginning on Saturday.
THE SCORECARD
Zac Cowan’s line: 5.1IP, 4H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 6K, 84 pitches, 53 strikes
Landon Beidelschies’s line: 5IP, 3H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 9K, 78 pitches, 52 strikes
Jared Jones: 3-for-5, HR, 2RBI
Luis Hernandez: 1-for-3, 2B, 2RBI
The teams combined for three runs in the first seven innings and eight in the final two.
Arkansas was 1-for-5 (.200) with runners in scoring position.
Arkansas was 3-for-14 (.214) with runners on.
LSU did not walk an Arkansas hitter.
Gibler had allowed one earned run in seven outings (11.1 innings) dating back to April 23. LSU got him for three earned runs in 2/3s of an inning on Wednesday.
LSU is now 5-0 against Arkansas in Omaha.
WHAT’S NEXT
LSU and Coastal Carolina will play a three-game series beginning Saturday at 6:00. LSU will have Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson available in whatever order Johnson decides to deploy them.
Coastal has won 26 straight games.
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