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POCHE’ PITCHES TOP-RANKED LSU TO NCAA REGIONAL TITLE
Sophomore left-hander
Jared Poche' nearly mirrored freshman Alex Lange's pitching gem with a
six-hit, 2-0 shutout of UNC Wilmington on Monday afternoon to give the
LSU baseball team its 21st NCAA Regional Championship.
Poche'
(8-1) had a career-best eight strikeouts and finished off the Tigers'
three-game sweep of the four-team, double-elimination regional at Alex
Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field that included several rain delays and
schedule adjustments.
At 1:09 a.m. Sunday,
tournament Most Outstanding Player, Lange, polished off a similar
six-hit complete-game shutout of UNCW by the same score (2-0) to put
the Tigers into Monday’s championship game.
LSU pitchers threw consecutive shutouts for the first time in the program's 190-game NCAA postseason history.
Following
a two-out double in the top of the ninth by UNCW's Corey Dick, LSU's
Parker Bugg relieved Poche' to get a strikeout of the potential
game-tying run and earn his third save of the season.
LSU
(51-10) will face Louisiana-Lafayette (42-21), which defeated Rice on
Monday to win the Houston Regional, in a three-game NCAA Super Regional
starting either Friday or Saturday at The Box.
Dates and game times will be announced late Monday or early Tuesday.
“First
of all, I'd like to congratulate North Carolina‑Wilmington on a
tremendous season,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “They've got a classy
group of kids and an outstanding coach in Mark (Scalf), and they have a
good ball club. They were scary. They were a scary
offensive lineup, and I think that just goes to show you just how great
Lange was the other night and Jared was today. To shut that team
down two games in a row between our pitching and our defense was really
amazing to see.
“You know, we didn't knock
the cover off the ball these last two games, but one of the things we
preach to our players all the time is that ‑‑ to the position players
who are both the offensive and defensive players, that if you don't
have a great hitting day, you can still help your team win by making
great plays on defense or drawing a clutch walk, stealing a base,
whatever, and I think today was an example of that.
“I
felt good,” Poche’ said. “About the fourth inning things kind of got
out of whack. I got six balls in a row, and I’ve got to give a
little bit of credit to (LSU catcher Kade) Scivicque. He kind of
helped me out mechanically, and I was able to locate my fastball and
curveball on both sides of the plate.
“I'd say I
had good bite on my curveball, and I was able to locate it on both
sides of the plate. I was able to get some swings and misses.”
The
Tigers scored a pair of unearned runs in the bottom of the second
inning off Seahawks starter Justin Crump (1-2). With two outs, Andrew
Stevenson reached on a fielding error by Dick and advanced to second on
a balk. Chris Chinea's double down the left field line scored Stevenson
from second, and Chinea came home on a single by Jake Fraley.
Both
LSU and UNCW left six on base, as the Tigers' pitching held the
Seahawks to 1-for-25 batting with runners on base in its past two games.
Defensive gems by LSU shortstop Alex Bregman and Stevenson in right field helped Poche' keep a clean sheet.
NCAA Baton Rouge Regional All-Tournament Team
P - Alex Lange, LSU
P - Ryan Foster UNCW
C - Gavin Stupienski, UNCW
1B - Chris Chinea, LSU
2B - Mike Garzillo, Lehigh
3B - Conner Hale, LSU
SS - Stephen Alemais, Tulane
OF - Andrew Stevenson, LSU
OF - Richard Carthon, Tulane
OF - Zach Shields UNCW
DH - Luke Dunlap, UNCW
Most Outstanding Player - Alex Lange, LSU
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