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CORVALLIS, ORE – The road to Omaha for the LSU Tigers goes through Corvallis, Oregon.
LSU, by their showing in the SEC Tournament, earned a spot in the NCAA Regional Tournament hosted by the No. 3 overall national seed Oregon State beginning tomorrow afternoon.
The Tigers (37-25) will face No. 3 seed San Diego St. (39-19) in the opening round of the four-team, double-elimination tournament. Game time for tomorrow’s contest is set for 3 p.m. (CST).
Oregon St. (44-10-1), and the No. 1 regional seed, will play host to No. 4 seed Northwestern State (37-22) at 9:30 p.m. (CST).
“We earned a No. 2 seed, but probably not a high No. 2 seed, which probably meant that they put us into a Top 8 National Seed regional,” stated LSU head coach Paul Maineiri. “It doesn’t really matter who you play. Once you get in the NCAA Tournament, everybody is good. Every team has either won a championship to earn their way into the tournament, or they were so good that they got an at-large bid. You’re going to face a good team no matter where you’re sent, no matter what your seeding is, and that’s the way we’re going to approach it.”
“So, we will take it one game at a time and try to win enough games before we lose two games in a weekend, so we can move to the next weekend,” Maineiri continued. “I’m proud that we did what we did this past week (in the SEC Tournament). I think it helped grow our confidence, team bonding and all those other things that give us belief that we can win games away from Alex Box Stadium.”
LSU is 29-8 at home, but only 4-14 on the road.
The Tigers, an NCAA post-season bubble team at best, came through in a big way becoming the first team to play an opening game on Tuesday and make it to the championship game in the current SEC Tournament format.
LSU lost to Ole Miss in the title game 9-1.
After losing two Pac-12 series in three weeks, Oregon State ripped off 20 wins in its final 25 games to storm to a No. 3 overall seed in the tournament. The Beavers rank No. 3 nationally in batting average (.318) and No. 8 in slugging (.485) and have two sluggers (Nick Madrigal and Trevor Larnach) who will probably be first-round draft picks next month.
The Beavers have 19 NCAA Tournament appearacnes, six World Series appearances and have won three national titles
San Diego St. went undefeated in the Mountain West Conference tournament to claim its fifth NCAA tournament appearance in the last six years. The Aztecs were a well-rounded club in 2018, finishing No. 10 nationally in batting average (.305) and No. 64 in ERA (3.90). Jordan Verdon is an extra bases machine, with 26 doubles and 12 home runs.
The Aztecs have 14 NCAA tournament appearances and no World Series appearances.
Northwestern State roared to life down the stretch, winning 16 of its final 20 games — including all four of its Southland Conference tournament contests. Three of those SLC tournament wins came by two or fewer runs. This is the Demons first appearance in the NCAA tournament since the 2005 season.