LSU dominates West Virginia 12-5 to punch its ticket to the College World Series
For the 20th time in program history, the Fightin’ Tigers of LSU are heading to the College World Series after beating West Virginia 12-5 to sweep the Baton Rouge Super Regional and advance to Omaha.
Sunday night’s game ended up being delayed by about three hours, but you wouldn’t have known otherwise with the crowd that was on hand. In what ended up being the last game at Alex Box Stadium for 2025, the Tiger faithful who waited out the…well not the rain but whatever weather delay was in play was rewarded with a wire-to-wire win.
LSU was paced by sophomores Steven Milam and Jake Brown. Both players went 2-4 at the plate, and both players were credited with four RBI. Milam had a pair of doubles including a three-run double in the second inning, while Brown had a two-run home run that went over the batter’s eye in the seventh. Milam also drew two walks, while Brown was hit by a pitch.
Even though LSU scored 12 total runs, they scored in just three innings. LSU scored one in the first, and then had a five-run second, and a six-run seventh inning. The Tigers were, of course, the better team all weekend long, but West Virginia certainly helped out LSU’s cause.
In Sunday night’s game, West Virginia committed three errors, walked nine Tiger batters, and hit three more. In the second inning after getting the first two outs, West Virginia walked the next three batters to load the bases, and then Milam broke the game open with his bases-clearing double.
All three of West Virginia’s errors came in LSU’s six-run seventh inning, the final two coming with two outs. The Mountaineers kept giving LSU extra chances Sunday, and the Tigers made them pay for it.
While LSU won pretty comfortably, it didn’t get the pitching performance we’ve come to expect from Anthony Eyanson as of late. He was limited to just five innings and got taken deep twice. Eyanson also had some control issues, handing out three walks and only throwing about 57 percent of his pitches for strikes (59 of 104).
But LSU should know better than anybody that if you want to win in June, and especially in Omaha, a team will need a couple of great performances from out of nowhere and for the second consecutive outing, true freshman Cooper Williams shined out of the bullpen. Leading 6-4, Williams came on in the sixth inning after Eyanson hit a batter that brought the tying run to the plate. Williams got out of that tight spot, and not only that retired the first eight batters that he faced. He made one mistake in the eighth inning that Jace Reinhart turned into a solo blast, then Williams walked the following batter, and that was the end of the line for the freshman; that said, I’ll take this final line every single time from Williams: 2.2 innings, one hit, one run, one walk, and one strikeout. LSU needs a few more strike throwers out of the bullpen if they’re gonna walk away with the national title, and Williams has been up to the task the past two times he’s been on the mound.
Chase Shores came on to finish the job and the redshirt sophomore showed why he’s such a tantalizing MLB Draft prospect: he struck out three of the four batters that he faced, and his fastball was consistently hitting 100 MPH.
I’m sure we’ll talk more on here about this team and the last few barriers that stand between them and No. 8, but for now let’s celebrate…by getting some sleep. LSU will play Arkansas in the opening round of the College World Series. Times and dates have yet to be announced as the field is not yet finalized: seven of the eight spots have been filled (LSU, Arkansas, UCLA, Oregon State, Louisville, Coastal Carolina, and Arizona) but we’ll have to wait for Monday evening for Murray State-Duke to play their winner take all game.