Congrats to LSU on winning the #CollegeWorldSeries, me being an intellectual, I knew this game was over at 8:42pm EST. I stayed up to watch the game go final, but was too tired to write my recap because I had to wake up early to commute to hell job and hit the gym because fitness is my life.
It's ring szn in the BAYOUUU. Dating back a few years Joe Burrow brought home the NCAA Football Championship, and back in April the LSU women's Basketball team won the NCAA March Madness tournament. So the men's baseball team decided to follow suit.
LSU's 2023 baseball season began with heavy preseason expectations, as the consensus No. 1 across every major poll. It ended with those expectations met and in a dog-pile near the mound in Omaha. From their 19 College World Series appearances, LSU has now emerged with seven national championships.
After getting routed on Sunday afternoon, the Tigers had a short memory and got back to work Monday night.
Florida baseball two-way star Jac Caglianone took the mound for the biggest start of his career on Monday night against LSU, eager to help pitch his veteran teammates to a national championship.
For an inning, Caglianone looked sharp, as the hard-throwing 6-foot-5 lefty recorded back-to-back strikeouts of LSU All-American third baseman Tommy White and first baseman Tre Morgan to end the first inning.
But staked to a 2-0 lead in the second inning, Caglianone (7-4) retired just one more batter. His outing ended allowing six earned runs in 1.1 innings, and a taxed Florida bullpen couldn’t limit the damage in an eventual 18-4 loss in Game 3 of the College World Series Finals.
LSU in Game 3 fell behind early when star Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford laced a two-run home run to left field. However, LSU swiftly rebounded the next half-inning by putting six runs on the board in the top of the second, all without an extra-base hit. The Tigers padded their lead with a four-run fourth inning, thanks in part to left fielder Josh Pearson's fourth home run of the season. The runs kept coming, and coming, and coming. Everyone was coming!
Potential Top 3 MLB Draft Picks:
LSU center fielder Dylan Crews and pitcher Paul Skenes will likely be the top two picks of the upcoming MLB Draft (Florida's Wyatt Langford might go No. 3). While Skenes didn't see the field in his final college game, Crews helped the Tiger cause in multiple ways. In my unbiased professional opinion, I would take Skenes #1 overall.
In his final contest as a collegian, Crews extended his on-base streak to 75 games, as he went 4 for 6 at the plate with a triple and a walk. With the glove, Crews made a nifty catch leaping into the wall in the third to take extra bases away from Colby Halter.
SEC Remains On Top:
Obviously both LSU and Florida are team in the Southeastern Conference, so we already knew the SEC would pick up another ring on Monday, but now it's official. An SEC team has now claimed four straight DI baseball titles, LSU, preceded by Ole Miss in 2022, Mississippi State in 2021, and Vanderbilt in 2019. (There was no MCWS in 2020 because of COVID.) Overall, the SEC has won five of the last six baseball titles and six of the last nine. Perhaps most impressive of all, the SEC has placed at least one team in the MCWS final in 14 of the last 15 years.
Wouldn't be surprised to see both LSU and Florida be atop of the College baseball world next season.
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