LSU, one of the two best teams in the country, had a chance to win its 7th title. Florida, another of the two best teams in the country, had other plans.
The series is tied 1-1, with one game remaining to decide the champion. It's really no more complicated than that, even with the Gators putting up a CWS record 24 runs in a stunning offensive explosion.
"It is what it is," Johnson said. "I’ve had a Super Regional game relatively similar to this, and then we turned the score around on the team in Game 3. It happens all the time in our league. ... Look at the two teams that are playing. They’re the two best teams in college baseball, and yea, I won’t give it any thought."
It's hard to argue, considering the dominating efforts both teams put forth to get into the title series. LSU won three straight elimination games, while the Gators went 3-0 in Omaha and have a clear rest advantage. Still, it was LSU winning Game 1 4-3 in extra innings. But it wasn't rest, at least not completely, that turned the fortunes against the Tigers, it was weather. After nearly a week of pitcher-friendly conditions at Charles Schwab Stadium that kept all but no-doubter shots in the yard, that flipped with the wind blowing directly out. Florida hit six home runs, including a glorified pop-up from Ty Evans that cleared the left field fence for a grand slam in the third inning that changed the game.
LSU had given the ball to Nate Ackenhausen, who delivered the performance of a lifetime in an elimination game against Tennessee on Tuesday. He didn't have the same juice this time. Ackenhausen himself said that his plan in that game was at times to load up the zone and trust the defense behind him, something that was clearly not in LSU's best interest tonight. He left after 2.1 and was replaced by Gavin Guidry, who threw the pitch that Evans sent out of the yard.
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"Let’s be honest, credit Evans for getting the swing on it," Johnson said. "But that ball would’ve easily been foul had the wind not shifted, but the wind shifted. And if I could fix the wind the way that I wanted to, I’d probably be doing different things, a lot of different things. But really excited about tomorrow night, and I believe the players are, too."
The Tigers players now have to do what they've been preaching and move on. Dylan Crews said after the game that he thinks most of the team in the locker had already forgotten about the game. Dwelling on it won't do them any favors, and as much as 24 runs might stand out in the headlines, it only counts for one game.
"Everybody is going to be mentally sharp tomorrow and we’re going to do what we’ve got to do tonight to get our bodies right," Crews said. "And we’ll be good for tomorrow.”
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MORE FROM JAY JOHNSON
Will Paul Skenes be available for Game 3?
“As I talked about last time, we do the process to figure that out, which we’ll do, and that doesn’t take place until day of game, so we have to do that with all of them. You’re going on Game 8 in 10 days, so we have to be mindful of all that and we will be and we’ll see who’s available.”
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Why no post-game meeting?
“We just chose to do it in the locker room, it was a long day out there and not a great day, and so I wanted to get them out of the sun and back to the hotel. There’s a real, physical grind of this thing that some of these guys are going through. So we wanted to get them hydrated, rested, out of the sun and get a full day-and-a-half to recover. For us, playing a day game to a night game is almost the equivalent of an off day, because we haven’t had many of those here, and that’s a good thing for our team.”
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Any concerns about runners left on base?
"We’re the best offensive team in the country and we lead the country in on-base percentage, you’re going to leave more runners on base. I feel part of the credit has to go to the pitcher at times. … But yea, we got our guys. We’re not going to bring in a bunch of free agents for tomorrow night. It’s a 27-man roster and I’m good with that. I’m totally good with that.”
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