BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA -- UC Irvine's red-hot pitching had little trouble icing LSU's big bats Saturday night in the opener of their super regional series.
When they added a bit of power to their offense and some chicanery to their defense it added up to an 11-5 victory.
``It was a little bit of everything,'' said UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie. ``A lot of different guys took part in the win. We had a lot of heroes.''
LSU's loss ended the nation's-best winning streak at 23 games.
Anteaters ace Scott Gorgen (12-3) scattered six hits before leaving in the seventh and allowed only one earned run. He struck out eight and walked four.
``He changed speeds a lot and got people to swing,'' said LSU DH Blake Dean. ``I swung at quiet a few pitches out of the zone, which put me in a hole and he's not the kind of pitcher you want to get yourself in a hole against.''
LSU (46-17-1) got into trouble early as starting pitcher Ryan Verdugo (9-2) walked the first two batters he faced. Jeff Cusick moved them up with a sacrifice bunt. Then, cleanup hitter Tony Asaro singled up the middle to score both runners.
The Anteaters (42-16) went up 3-1 in the fifth inning after Verdugo walked Aaron Lowenstein and Cusick drove him in.
``If you make mistakes they are going to take advantage of it,'' LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. ``There was a point in the game where we had given up six runs and five of them were walks.''
In the bottom of the sixth, Gorgen walked the bases loaded with two out. Leon Landry drove in a run, but the LSU rally fizzled when UC Irvine second baseman Casey Stevenson pulled the hidden ball trick on the Tigers' D.J. LeMahieu at second base.
Landry hit a grounder off Gorgen's glove which then bounced Stevenson. Instead of making a throw, Stevenson held the ball and when play resumed and LeMahieu took his lead off second, Stevenson tagged him.
``I was one foot off the base and I saw the second baseman run at me out of the corner of my eye and I put my foot back on the base before he tagged me,'' LeMahieu insisted.
Second base umpire David Rogers called LeMahieu out. In television replays it appeared that Rogers was in front of the bag and could not see the play, but his call when Stevenson and teammates began celebrating stood.
``Everyone on the team did a good job of selling it,'' Stevenson said. ``We were screaming `We started running off the field before the ump even made the out call.''
UC Irvine got a 3-run homer from Sean Madigan in the sixth his second home run of the year. Then pinch hitter Brock Bardeen added two-run homer in the eighth, only his fifth of the season.
LaMahieu's home run in the bottom of the eight cut the Anteaters lead to 11-4.
The winner of the best of three series advances to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
UC Irvine is trying to get there for a second consecutive season. LSU was last in the College World Series in 2004. The last of the Tigers' five national championships was in 2000.
Monday
November 25th, 2024
6:42PM
