BATON ROUGE – LSU’s advantage has been neutralized.
The top-seeded Tigers lost to No. 2 seed Rice, 10-6, Monday night, setting up a winner-take-all NCAA Baton Rouge Regional final Tuesday at 4 p.m. – likely on one of the ESPN channels - with the champion advancing to the Super Regional round against the North Carolina State-Coastal Carolina winner.
LSU (44-19) had won its first two games of the Regional, 7-1 over Utah Valley Friday and 4-2 win over Rice on Sunday night in the winner’s bracket final, but fell to 2-1 in the rain-delayed tournament Monday. The Owls (38-23), meanwhile, played their fourth game in two days on Monday to improve to 3-1 in the tournament. Earlier Monday, the Owls eliminated Southeastern Louisiana, 15-0, in a game that started at 2 p.m., but did not end until 6:36 p.m. as there was a one hour and 37-minute rain delay in the eighth. Then Rice and LSU started at 7:45 p.m.
The Tigers do have their No. 2 starter Jared Poche, a junior left-hander with 50 starts in this three-year career, available on three days of rest. Poche (8-4, 3.47 ERA) threw 92 pitches on Friday night in beating Utah Valley 7-1 amid pleasant temperatures in the 70s. He allowed five hits in six innings with eight strikeouts and no walks.
Also available is freshman left-hander Jake Latz, who has come on strong of late after recovering from elbow surgery last fall. Latz (0-1, 2.84 ERA) has thrown six and one-third innings in five appearances on the season, but four of those were in the last three weeks. Latz threw 13 pitches in one inning of hitless, shutout relief against Utah Valley and struck out two. LSU also has junior right-handed reliever Parker Bugg (1-2, 3.55 ERA), who has not pitched since the SEC Tournament.
Rice, showing no weariness, jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning off LSU starter Caleb Gilbert, who joined the weekend rotation late in the season. Conner Teykl and Tristan Gray singled to start the second and were bunted over by Ryan Chandler. Gilbert walked Dominic DiCaprio to load the bases, and Dayne Wunderlich put the Owls up 1-0 with a sacrifice fly to right field.
No. 9 batter Hunter Kopycinski, who entered the game hitting .212, then singled in a run for a 2-0 lead. Charlie Warren followed with an RBI double for the 3-0 advantage. It could have been more, but Kopycincski was thrown out at the plate. Gilbert still left the game, though, as Riley Smith started the Rice third inning on the mound for the Tigers.
LSU cut Rice’s lead to 3-1 in the fourth as Kramer Robertson singled and later scored on Greg Deichmann’s RBI single off Rice starter Dane Myers. But Tristan Gray led off the Rice fourth with a home run off Smith for a 4-1 advantage.
The Tigers came right back to tie the score 4-4 in the fifth as Robertson knocked a two-run home run to left field off Myers and Michael Papierski drew a bases-loaded walk off reliever Zach Esquivel. Reliever Glenn Otto got the Owls out of it and shut LSU down until the eighth when Jake Fraley hit a two-run home run to cut Rice’s lead to 10-6.
Rice scored three in the fifth for a 7-4 lead. Warren and Lewis singled to chase Smith, who took the loss to fall to 2-1. Then Ford Proctor hit a sacrifice fly off LSU reliever Doug Norman, who went on to allow a RBI double to Teykl and a RBI single to Chandler.
The Owls stretched their lead to 10-4 with three more in the seventh inning and chased reliever Jesse Stallings. Chandler had an RBI single, and Blake Fox delivered a two-run single. Stallings allowed three hits and three runs with two walks in an inning and a third.
