LSU awaits Southern Miss. or Miss. State for home Super Regional

The Daily Advertiser

BATON ROUGE - After a pair of wild, high scoring victories, LSU took a Walker on the calmer side to a 5-0 victory over Rice for the NCAA Regional title behind freshman sensation pitcher Eric Walker in front of about 10,000 at Alex Box Stadium Sunday night.

The Tigers (46-17) won their 14th straight game and advanced to a home Super Regional beginning Friday or Saturday at the Box against the winner of the NCAA Regional in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where No. 1 Regional seed Southern Mississippi (50-14) will host No. 2 seed Mississippi State (38-25) at 1 p.m. Monday on ESPN3. Should Mississippi State win, it would have to beat USM again in a 6 p.m. game Monday on ESPN3. The eight Super Regional winners advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Tigers trailed in each of their first two Regional games before beating Texas Southern, 15-7, on Friday afternoon and Southeastern Louisiana, 11-6, on Saturday night.

Walker would have none of that. He blew through the Rice lineup like it was gravy for eight innings, scattering seven hits and striking out eight with no walks to improve to 8-1 on the season. Not once did he even get to three balls on a batter.

"I didn't know that," Walker said.

"I was just kind of trying to figure out when that pitch is going to come that he may mess up or if I can try to figure out to maybe get ahead of him and try to guess the right pitch," said Rice second baseman Tristan Gray, who struggled at finding that as he was 1-for-4 with a single and struck out once.

"He's very advanced in terms of demeanor and knowing how to pitch," said Rice coach Wayne Graham, a pitching expert for decades. "He's a real pitcher. There's no doubt. You rarely see someone like that, and he really knows what he's doing. He has a purpose with every pitch. That's very obvious. Most of the time, he carries out that purpose. He's a fine pitcher."

Walker will likely start LSU's second game of the Super Regional after ace Alex Lange (9-5, 2.87 ERA) in the opener.

"He continues to show how ready he is to pitch in the big games," said LSU coach Paul Mainieri, who has been leaning to Walker in the No. 2 slot for the Super Regional for more than a week. "He's pitched the best games of the year as much as any of our pitchers. He's been everything we hoped he'd be."

A former quarterback at Martin High in Arlington, Texas, Walker won his second straight decision and second straight tournament title in the process. He beat Arkansas, 4-2, last Sunday for the Southeastern Conference Tournament title, holding the Razorbacks to five hits and one run in seven and two-thirds innings with eight strikeouts and one walk.

"It means a lot," Walker said. "The only way I can really describe it is pitching for a championship really fires me up. I love that situation, and I feel like I tend to thrive under pressure. That's something I like to think about myself. It's not always true, but I like to think it. Tonight, it was really good to go out and seal the deal and not have to play on Monday."

Freshman right-hander Zack Hess pitched the ninth for the Tigers and struck out three with one walk as Rice finished the season at 33-31.

Walker's only loss this season was at Kentucky on April 23 as he fell to 5-1.

"He's done it so many times for us," Mainieri said. "Obviously, the story of the game was this young guy sitting right next to me. We're not surprised anymore. That's the third time in three weeks he's us to a championship."

Walker did not get the win at Mississippi State on May 20 when the Tigers beat the Bulldogs, 11-7, to sweep the three-game series and win the Southeastern Conference regular season title, but he limited State to six hits and four runs in four innings and kept his team in the game.

"He basically put the team on his back tonight and was the leader," Mainieri said.

"I had no doubts in him. He's a Texas high school quarterback, so he's played in front of big crowds and a lot of pressure," said LSU senior shortstop Kramer Robertson, who was the quarterback at Midway High in Waco, Texas. "So he has that poise. He can go out and do that. He's really competitive, and he's focused. He's gotten better and more calm as the year has gone on."

And after LSU jumped right on Rice freshman right-hander Addison Moss in the top of the second inning with three hits for a 3-0 lead, things were pretty calm the rest of the night. Greg Deichmann had started the rally by reaching on an error. Then Josh Smith doubled to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead. Beau Jordan followed with a single to put runners on the corners. Michael Papierski's sacrifice bunt scored Smith for a 2-0 lead. Jake Slaughter, subbing for injured regular first baseman Nick Coomes (thumb), singled Jordan home for the 3-0 advantage.

The Tigers made it 4-0 in the third as Robertson doubled, reached third on a bunt single by Cole Freeman and scored on a sacrifice fly to left by Antoine Duplantis. Moss (3-2) left the game at this point and took the loss after allowing five hits and four runs. LSU made it 5-0 in the fourth on a bases-loaded fielder's choice grounder to third by Robertson as Rice went to a third pitcher.

It was a far cry from the double figure runs LSU has put up in seven of its previous nine games, but it was enough because of Walker.

"Eric pitched so magnificently, it turned out to be plenty," Mainieri said.

Amazingly, Zach Watson did not figure into any of the scoring. The freshman from Ruston via West Ouachita High in West Monroe went 0-for-4 at the plate after homering four times in LSU's previous two victories - two in each game.

LSU has won 23 NCAA Regionals in all beginning in 1986 with 21 of those in Alex Box Stadium and the other two at the University of New Orleans in 1987 and at Texas A&M in 1989. It will try to reach Omaha for the 18th time next weekend.

"I hope LSU goes on to win the national championship, because they're a fine club, and they treat people right," Graham said.