"That was one for the ages." said LSU coach Paul Mainiwei after his Tigers completed a comeback and squared the Baton Rouge Super Regional at a game apiece with a 9-7 victory over UC Irvine on Sunday at Alex Box Stadium.
The No. 2 Tigers scored five runs in the top of the ninth inning for the win.
The Tigers (47-17-1), who saw their 23-game winning streak end on Saturday, forced a winner-take-all game to be played at 6 p.m. on Monday. LSU will be the home team after winning a coin flip prior to Sunday's game. The winner will advance to the College World Series which gets under way next Saturday and Sunday.
"Our kids don't know how to quit," said the Tigers coach. "Everyone in the dugout believed we could do it and there was no quite in anybody. One guy after another just kept doing it and it was amazing."
LSU junior left-hander Blake Martin (5-3) will start for the Tigers in hopes of LSU making its 14 appearance in Omaha and the program's first since 2004. The Anteaters will start sophomore right-hander Bryce Stowell (8-2).
The Anteaters had a comfortable 7-2 lead in the top of the eighth when Jared Mitchell sparked a rally with a lead off solo home run. Matt Clark closed the deficit to 7-4 with an RBI single.
"I just wanted to get on base some kind of way," said Mitchell, a Tigers wide receiver. "I hit the ball hard and it just carried out of the park."
Blake Dean, the Tigers' best hitter, hit an RBI single to tie the game at 7-7 as Mitchell dove ahead of the throw.
LSU's Louis Coleman (7-0) was nearly perfect in relief.
"I came in and we were down 7-2 and I just wanted to give our guys a chance to get the bats going," said Coleman. The sinker was really working well today.
"The saying we have in the locker room is 'Refuse to lose.' We go out and everyone believes in everyone. Anyone that comes in from the bullpen, we have faith that they are going to get it done. I think it's a team chemistry that we have going together that helps us through."
Mighty Brownie strikes out
Off the typewriter...
On a sad day in sports for some of us, Mighty Brownie struck out, LSU lost its opening game of the Super Regional and has its winning streak stopped at 23, and Jim McKay, who was the global voice of global sports in America, died.
In the running of the Belmont Stakes at New York, the leaders were coming to the top of the stretch. Big Brown wasn't in the lead yet, but that was OK. Surely he was about to fire. Surely he was about to make his move. Only he never made that move.
"Something's wrong." the trainer, said to himself, and in a racing season when no one has proffered more opinions and more sound bites that Dutrow, those two words said far more than the thousands that had preceded them.
"At the last turn," said jockey Kent Desormeaux, "I had no horse left."
And by the time Big Brown finally ambled across the finish line, 10 seconds after Da' Tara, the wire-to-wire winner, the 100,000 voices turned to a chorus of boos. Might Brownie had struck out.
Maybe it was three grueling races stretched over five weeks, a time frame and distance so tough that no trainer in his right mind would risk putting a three-year-old thoroughbred to the test if the reward wasn't millions and a guaranteed place in racing history.
Dutrow had said all week that Big Brown was a lock to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years. If racing is lucky, they won't find anything wrong with Big Brown, and will instead will just wind up re-discovering the oldest lesson in the game: If you think you've got a sure thing on your hands, maybe it's best to keep it to yourself.
Keith Zinger, the Falcons' seventh-round draft choice out of LSU, has signed a four-year contract with Atlanta. The 6-4, 267-pound tight end caught 15 passes for 208 yards an a touchdown in 54 games for the Tigers. He is the Falcons' second draft pick to sign. The other is quarterback Matt Ryan, the first over-all selection in the draft who signed a six-year deal last months...Former Curtis running star Joe McKnight was ineligible for spring football at USC after dropping too many classes and falling below NCAA minimum number of credit hours per semester. Trojans coach Pete Carroll insists McKnight will be back for pre-season camp, but this latest development isn't a great sign he'll be at USC for the duration of his career. Is JacksonvilleState next for McKnight?...
This from Jay Leno: "The New York Post reported Big Brown, win or lose the Triple Crown, will impregnate between 500 and 600 mares over the next four ears, thus making him an honorary member of the NBA."...Did you see the story about Packers running back Noah Herron fighting off home intruders with a bedpost he unscrewed from the bed? Must have been really slow intruders...Did you see Paul Pierce of the Celtics go out of the game with a knee injury and then return minutes later in Game 1 of the NBA Finals? It's a good thing Pierce isn't Tiger Woods or he would have been out of action for the next two months. And, by the way, can we please refrain from comparing Pierce to Willis Reed? For crying out loud, that's like comparing Lindsay Lohan to Katharine Hepburn...Funniest headline of the week: "Hillary Clinton will consider being vice president." That's mighty nice of her don't you think? Isn't that sort of like Les Miles losing to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game and then offering to split the title...
I'm a list-maker, so this list is a natural.
Top 10 Thoroughbreds of all-time:
1. Secretariat: Won the Triple Crown in '73, including the Belmont by an amazing 31 lengths. Big Brown lovers should know that Secretariat's nickname was "Big Red."
2. Mr. Ed: A horse is a horse. If Big Brown could talk, we'd know what happened in the Belmont.
3. Affirmed: Last Triple Crown winner.
4. Khartoum: You may not recognize the name, but you remember him. He's the horse in "The Godfather."
5. Pegasus: In Greek mythology, a winged horse that may have been the son of Poseidon and Medusa.
6. Silver: "Hi Yo Silver, Away!" The Lone Ranger's horse.
7. Black Beauty: This is for the ladies, who loved the book and/or movie.
8. Trigger: Roy Rogers loved his horse so much that he had him stuffed. You can see him at Roy's museum in Branson, Mo.
9. Horse with No Name: The group America rode into the desert.
10: Alydar: Claimed the poor man's Triple Crown in '78 by finishing second in all three race. That may be harder than winning all three.
As you can see, this is a great list and a tough one because of those who just missed making the list including all unicorns, Seabiscuit, and Flicka (My Friend)...
Notre Dame stopped being Notre Dame when when it canned Tyrone Willingham in 2004 and Kevin White, former Tulane AD, ceased being the AD of the Irish then. The firing was done on White's watch and that's exactly what he did as the university trustee sand the incoming ND president fired the coach. White fell on the blue and gold sword. Problem is, nobody pulled him off the blade. Notre Dame hired White, but eventually peeled layer after layer of his job authority.
White left Notre Dame with four years left on his contract, but nobody threatened with a lawsuit if he left. Now, White is the new AD at Duke. which has had three win less and two one-win football seasons since 2000. But Duke has won as many national championships as ND during the past 19 years: zero. It also has as many Heisman Trophy winners at ND during the past 20 seasons" zero. So, ND is way ahead in style points, but Irish followers shouldn't get too smug. ND had a grand total of two more wins than Duke last year (3 vs. 1) -- and one of those wins was against Duke. White made the right move.
The movie "Patriots" has had a change in titles. It's now "Hurricane Season," and will shoot Monday through Wednesday at the Fogelman Arena on the Tulane campus. Jim McKay made "The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat," famous. He was the voice of global sports to America during the peak years when we discovered the rest of the world through televison's eyes and ears. He spoke, we listed -- and learned. McKay was also an excellent writer and a former newspaper man. He was 86.
Are you really still on the firing of Ty war-path? Really, you have nothing else to write about? Ty got fired because he didn't recruit - he's not a good coach - he blames players instead of himself for losses. I don't see Stanford, or Washington too happy. UW will can him, and I pray it's soon so dumb ass "journalists" like yourself can get over it. Written by Josh
on 6/9/2008
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