LSU regional finds Tigers in same spot, new situation

Posted 5:49AM on Friday 3rd June 2005 ( 19 years ago )

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) LSU will be on familiar ground on Friday, but in an unfamiliar place. The Tigers (38-20) are hosting an NCAA regional baseball tournament for the 16th straight time and 17th overall with the first one in 1986. The Tigers have won 13 of those regionals. This year, however, LSU, which went 0-for-2 in the Southeastern Conference Tournament, is not a clear-cut favorite to come out the victor. The Tigers are the No. 1 seed. They will face No. 4 seed Marist (33-19) at 1 p.m. Friday. No. 2 seed Rice (41-17) will take on No. 3 seed Northwestern State (40-18) at 6 p.m. Friday in Game 2 of the regional. The regional continues through Sunday, with a final game to be played Monday, if necessary. The Baton Rouge Regional winner will face the winner of the New Orleans Regional in a Super Regional series next weekend. The Super Regional winner advances to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. MARIST-LSU Marist is making its fourth trip to the NCAA Tournament in six years. The Red Foxes won the Mid Atlantic Athletic Conference to reach this year's regional with a 22-5 league record. ``It's awesome,'' Red Foxes coach Joe Raccuia said. ``We're going into one of the best college baseball atmospheres in the country. We've got a pretty big challenge ahead of us. We feel we can compete and handle it. Marist's trips to Louisiana earlier this year were not successful. They opened the season with losses to Louisiana-Lafayette and Texas State and a victory against Miami (Ohio) in a tournament in Lafayette. Next, they were swept by Tulane in New Orleans, including a 24-2 loss in the second game of the three-game series. The Green Wave had to go into extra innings to win the first game 8-4, and Marist trailed 6-5 in the eighth inning of the third game before losing 11-5. Still, the team is feeling confident going into the tournament. ``I know our pitching staff can match up against anybody in the country,'' said center fielder Travis Musolf, who leads the Red Foxes with a .359 average. ``We've proved it. When our pitching is on, our team is on. If we hit and play well, we can play with anybody in the country.'' LSU, ranked 13th by Baseball America, was one of nine SEC teams chosen for the tournament by the selection committee. They now want to forget that two-and-out performance at the SEC tournament. ``We don't want to think about that, we've got a new season starting,'' said LSU's leading hitter, Ryan Patterson. ``I'm starting over. What happened in the past is over, even the good things. I'm just going to try to help my team any way I can in the most important part of the season.'' After a couple of days off, coach Smoke Laval had his team work on fundamentals, saying much of their trouble came from not doing the basic things right. ``It was good for us to take a couple of days off,'' Patterson said. ``We're looking ahead instead of worrying about the past. I don't think confidence is an issue.'' The Tigers hosted a regional and Super Regional last season and advanced to the College World Series for the second straight year. RICE-NORTHWESTERN ST Northwestern State played a tough schedule, beat some good teams, and earned an at-large berth in the regional. ``Our numbers this year stood for themselves,'' said NSU coach Mitch Gaspard. ``Fortunately, the committee saw it the same way we did.'' The Demons (40-18) are the three seed in the Baton Rouge regional, and will play Western Athletic Conference champion and two seed Rice (41-17) Friday. It's the first regional berth for Northwestern State since 1994. The Demons dominated the Southland Conference, setting records with a 22-5 mark and outdistancing the second-place team by six games. But after going two-and-out on their home field in the SLC Tournament, Northwestern hits the regional looking to rebound. Northwestern should have confidence. The Demon's tough schedule included 19 games against 10 teams that made it into the regional field of 64. Northwestern had wins over No. 4 overall seed Baylor, No. 5 Ole Miss and at-large teams Oklahoma and St. John's. Rice coach Wayne Graham, twice the national coach of the year, has 1,000 victories and six national titles in his career in junior college and Division I, and was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame this past February. Along the way, he learned something important never take any thing for granted. ``Northwestern State won 40 games; you can't win 40 Division I games unless you've got a good ballclub,'' Graham said. ``To think that we can take them lightly is wrong. On paper, they're very hard to beat. There's no light touch for us.'' Left-hander Joe Savery, one of just three freshmen in the country on the inaugural list of invitees to participate in the 2005 USA Baseball national team trials. is expected to get the start for the Owls. The versatile Savery currently leads the Western Athletic Conference in hitting (.390) and he is second in the league in ERA (2.50). As a hitter he ranks among the WACs best in on-base percentage (first), slugging (fourth), runs scored (third) and doubles (fourth). As a pitcher Savery has compiled a 7-4 record while holding batters to a combined .237 average. He has recorded 115 strikeouts in 104.2 innings of work. ``Everybody looks at me as a go-to guy, and I don't mind that,'' Savery said. ``In fact, I like it.'' (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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