Frey, Evans lead Tigers to regional win

(Photo Credit: @LSUbaseball on X)

By Hunt Palmer

THE STORY

The entire regional fell in Casan Evans’s lap on Monday night.

The Tigers trailed 3-1 in the second with runners at the corners and one out. A fielder’s choice and a bloop single to center immediately made it 5-1, and the LSU season was on the brink.

And Evans saved it.

LSU stormed back and beat relentless Little Rock 10-6 to win the Baton Rouge Regional and advance to Super Regional play next week against West Virginia at Alex Box Stadium.

The freshman turned in six stellar innings with 12 strikeouts. Between the fourth and seventh innings, he struck out nine hitters in a row, burying slider after slider under the barrels of flailing Little Rock hitters.

With the Little Rock bats at bay, the LSU offense finally found a spark in the form of Ethan Frey.

With the score 5-1, LSU’s lone run coming on Frey’s majestic home run in the first, Frey dug in with the bases loaded and two out in the fourth. He rifled a bases-clearing double to right center to ignite the crowd, lift the pressure from LSU’s struggling offense and cut the Little Rock lead to one.

Two innings later, Luis Hernandez launched a towering blast that hugged the left field line and drifted into the seats for a game-tying home run. LSU had drawn even, and the Trojans were low on available arms.

Frey belted a double to lead off the seventh, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on Steven Milam’s groundout to give the Tigers the lead back, and Hernandez blasted his second home run of the game in the eighth for a little insurance.

It looked like the Tigers were poised to put the game away in the eighth when Daniel Dickinson stepped to the dish with a two-run lead and the bases loaded. Dickinson fanned to keep Little Rock close.

Jay Johnson decided to let Evans come back out in the eighth after a bumpy seventh that included three walks in a one-run game. Evans did step up and finish the frame with a strikeout to preserve the lead.

But he was running on fumes and allowed a pair of hits to open the bottom of the eighth in a 7-5 game. That’s when Evans may have made the play of the game. Little Rock dropped down a bunt to advance the runners from first and second, and Evans pounced on it and fired to third to retire the lead runner.

Johnson summoned Friday starter Anthony Eyanson to slam the door with two on and one out in a two-run game.

Trojan leadoff man Alex Seguine greeted Eyanson with a roller through the infield to cut the lead to one, but Eyanson got a strikeout and a groundout to escape with a one-run lead.

Jared Jones busted out of a brutal stretch of swings with a laser of a two-run homer in the ninth to give LSU some cushion, and Eyanson retired the side in order to seal the deal.

Little Rock was valiant until the end.

Centerfielder Zach Henry looked like a big leaguer in centerfield. He ran everything down. First baseman Angel Cano was named the regional’s Most Outstanding Player. He was 10-for-19 over the last three days of the tournament. They asked pitcher after pitcher for more than the normal workload, and they almost got it done.

For LSU, it was a disaster early. Dickinson and Milam couldn’t connect on a flip at second for the team’s first error of the regional in the five-run second. Bloopers were falling in for the Trojans. LSU left the bases loaded for the third time in two games in the third. But the Alex Box crowd never quit. It continued to urge on the homestanding Tigers.

Ultimately, LSU was too much for the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament champions.

Zac Cowan started the game for the Tigers and once again was not the same pitcher who dominated the SEC for seven weeks. He allowed five runs, four earned, on three hits and two walks. He only recorded four outs.

Evans and Frey wouldn’t be denied, and the Tigers are moving on.

The 2025 Baton Rouge Regional Champs 🏆 pic.twitter.com/RK06DTi02w

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) June 3, 2025

THE SCORECARD 

Casan Evans’ line: 6IP, 4H, 1R, 1ER, 3BB, 12K, 109 pitches, 71 strikes

Ethan Frey: 4-for-4, HR, 2 2B, 4RBI, 2R, 2BB

Jared Jones: 2-for-5, HR, 2RBI

Luis Hernandez: 3-for-5, 2HR, 3RBI

Jake Brown: 2-for-4, BB, R

Anthony Eyanson: 1.2IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 3K

LSU scored in five of its last six at bats

Little Rock scored in one of its last seven at bats.

LSU pitching recorded 16 strikeouts.

Little Rock did not have a two-out hit.

THE QUOTES

Regional MOP Angel Cano on Casan Evans…

“Man, he was nasty. He was spinning it and spinning it really good. He threw me some fastballs there and made me think about it a little bit. He just got me. I’m just happy I got him back in my last AB.”

LSU head coach Jay Johnson on the crowd…

“The first thing I want to say is to echo what the players said. That environment tonight was special. Maybe the Super Regional a couple of years ago. I don’t ever remember it like that. And it’s been great. I mean that was like another bar. The thing I’m the most grateful for is that maybe in those nervous moments for them I felt like they really lifted the team. Jake (Brown) flied out to left with the bases load. A little bit of carry over feeling maybe for (the crowd), with last night’s game us not capitalizing on some opportunities, but they kept going. They kept supporting the players. And that’s all I care about.”

Johnson on Jared Jones’s home run and his own reaction…

“That’s probably the most excited I’ve been, at least in this season. He hit a big homer as a freshman against Alabama in a crazy game that we had kind of come back in like that, so I just love him. This is three years as far as what we’re trying to do in player development. He hadn’t had a good couple of weeks here. But we were here working today. There was just one of those good coach moments where you can tell how hard they’re fighting themselves. They care so much, and they want to be the guy for the team. It wasn’t about him and his performance. He’s way past that. He’s been such a great leader this year. And just the work that was put into today mentally and physically. I think he had two hits. And that was a huge deal, 9-6 as opposed to 7-6 as we know from Chapel Hill last year. That’s why we didn’t win the regional last year because we didn’t couldn’t get the two-run cushion. The moment, the work, the behind the scenes. The blood sweat and tears that he’s put in the bucket that nobody sees. They just see the struggle. It was really cool. It was a really cool moment right there.”

Casan Evans on his tempo on the mound…

“I think tempo is the best thing you can have when you’re on the mound. It’s one of the big factors that a lot of the pitchers don’t have. When you don’t have tempo, then you’re not going to be able to get dudes out. At one point in the game I got going a little too fast. Kade Anderson came up to me and said, ‘you threw four pitches in 20 seconds.’ So, I think that was a little too fast, out I was able to go out there and get within myself and go compete.”

WHAT’S NEXT

LSU welcomes West Virginia, champs of the Clemson Regional, to Alex Box Stadium for a Super Regional.

Play will either begin Friday or Saturday, and the winner of the three-game series heads to Omaha for the College World Series.

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