LSU ADVANCES TO COLLEGE WORLD SERIES
#4 LSU (48-17) 14, Mississippi State (40-27) 4
First words out of Paul Maineri's mouth in the postgame press conference?
"Omaha get ready, cause the Tigers are coming!"
And coming they are. After a decisive 14-4 win over Mississippi State, the Tigers carry a 16-game win streak into the College World Series.
The Bayou Bengals have been waiting for this moment since being ousted by the eventual national champs Coastal Carolina last year in the Super Regionals. Ever since that heartbreaking 4-3 loss, senior shortstop Kramer Robertson has had a picture of the Chanticleer's dog-pile in Baton Rouge as his phone wallpaper.
"I will be changing [my wallpaper] before I go to bed tonight," Robertson told me. "I never want to look at that picture again." He can update it to the dog-pile his Tiger team had to wait for until around 2am Monday morning, due to two in-game rain delays.
"It's not like I hadn't waited long enough for that dog-pile. We had to have a rain delay," Robertson said with a smile. "I waited my entire baseball career for that dog-pile. So I could wait a little bit longer."
"We were happy when [the delays] were over, but our mind was still on one goal, to win this game," center fielder Zach Watson told me on the field after the game.
Mississippi State was threatening with the bases loaded in the third, down 3-2. That forced Paul Mainieri to pull his senior pitcher Jared Poché in his final home game.
"It didn't go as planned. I thought Jared was extremely sharp in the first two innings," Mainieri said. "I felt like he was going to be on. I felt like it was going to be his night. And in the third inning he just lost command, lost the feel for his pitches, getting frustrated, which is very uncharacteristic of Jared."
Sophomore Caleb Gilbert came in, and was absolutely sensational for the Tigers. He led his team to victory, going 5.2 innings, not allowing any runs and striking out 6. He excelled, while Mississippi State's pitchers faded.
"I thought Caleb Gilbert was the story of the game, really," Mainieri said. "He put the team on his back and steadied the ship."
LSU opened up the floodgates in the 5th, scoring 6 runs to go up 9-4. Catcher Michael Papierski came up clutch again for LSU, hitting a 2-run double to put the Tigers ahead 5-4, and they never looked back after that.
Andy Cannizaro finishes 40-27 in his first year at Mississippi State, and had high praise for the LSU team he was the hitting coach for just last year.
"I'd like to congratulate LSU, they played phenomenal. The train is rolling. I expect them to go to Omaha and win a national championship," Cannizaro said of his former team.
LSU will face Florida State in its first CWS game on either Saturday or Sunday.
"This isn't the end", Kramer Roberston said. "We're ready to go."
And ready they are.
