GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
OMAHA, Nebraska – LSU knows weather delays. UCLA does not.
The Tigers lead the Bruins in that category, 19-1, this season, and because of that, LSU can win after midnight and 1 a.m. as they did throughout the regular season, most other times, and in the case of Tuesday at the College World Series – at breakfast and lunch time, too.
There was a 15-hour delay between the suspension of play between LSU and UCLA after three innings Monday night due to weather and the re-start at 10:03 a.m. Tuesday for LSU’s earliest time to report for a game in its CWS history that began in 1986.
But the Tigers played seamlessly throughout regardless of time for a 9-to-5 win over UCLA Tuesday just after 12:30 p.m. to go to a very blue-skies 2-0 in the CWS.
And we’ll see you at 10 am Tuesday …https://t.co/8NR1p1bVa7
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 17, 2025
LSU coach Jay Johnson is 2-0 in Omaha for the first time in his fourth trip, and the Tigers (50-15) are 2-0 for the first time since they won the national championship in 2009.
“I never look too far down the road in this tournament,” Johnson said. “I think you can get yourself in trouble with that. If you win the first two with only maybe three guys unavailable for the next game (Kade Anderson, Anthony Eyanson and Casan Evans), you’ve probably done a pretty good job. That’s probably where we’re at.”
LSU advances to a 6 p.m. game Wednesday – weather permitting – on ESPN against the winner of UCLA (48-17) and Arkansas (49-14), which were scheduled to play at 6 p.m. Tuesday night.
“Oh, we play tonight?,” UCLA coach John Savage joked. “This will be our first doubleheader all season.”
That after the Bruins experienced their first weather delay of the season, or perhaps multiple seasons, on Monday night.
“We don’t deal with weather much in L.A.,” Savage said. “But it’s the World Series, man, you’ve got to deal with anything.”
Johnson knows weather now.
“The best weather for college baseball is in Tucson, Arizona,” Johnson said of his former job as Arizona’s coach from 2016-21 when he took the Wildcats here twice.
Not in Baton Rouge, he soon found, and that dealing with constant weather delays in Baton Rouge surely helped LSU win this game.
“The mindset piece after the disruption of the game and our response was very much within the character of our team,” Johnson said. “We’ve started after 10 p.m., played until 1 in the morning.”
The weather pushed Tuesday’s scheduled first complete CWS game between Oregon State (45-16) and Louisville (41-23) to 1:44 p.m. from 1 p.m. Coastal Carolina (55-11) is the other 2-0 team at the CWS and has won 25 in a row. The Chanticleers are scheduled to play at 1 p.m. Wednesday against the Oregon State-Louisville winner.
The Tigers carried a 5-3 lead from Monday night into Tuesday after three full innings Monday when the threat of bad weather suspended the game at 7:20 p.m. At 10:13 p.m., NCAA officials sent everyone home or back to their hotels and scheduled the continuation of the game at 10:03 a.m. Tuesday.
Not a difficult decision to start freshman Casan Evans. He has been 1 of LSU’s top 3 pitchers all season (4-1, best ERA with more than 20 innings at 1.86, team-high 7 saves), 66 Ks in 48.1 innings, just 19 walks) guts of a Chad Ogea.
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 17, 2025
Freshman right-hander Casan Evans got the re-start as he relieved Monday night starter Anthony Eyanson, who allowed three runs on four hits with one strikeout and no walks with a hit batsman in three innings. And Evans came out on fire as usual, retiring Payton Brennan on a grounder to shortstop and striking out Blake Balsz and Phoenix Call around a harmless single by Cashell Dugger to open the fourth.
Evans (5-1) picked up the win with four and a third innings of relief and struck out five with zero walks.
“Evans did a really good job,” Savage said. “Thought he pounded the zone with multiple pitches.”
Evans allowed no runs until the eighth when the Bruins scored two to cut LSU’s lead to 8-5 as Evans allowed a single and hit a batter, and reliever Cooper Williams ran into trouble. But LSU remained in control and increased the lead to 9-5 in the eighth on an RBI single by Jared Jones.
The Tigers started Tuesday morning fast in the bottom of the fourth with a two-out rally for two runs to take a 7-3 lead. Derek Curiel singled and Ethan Frey walked off UCLA reliever Wylan Moss to start things. Then Steven Milam and Jake Brown delivered back-to-back “Goldens,” which are two-out RBI hits in Johnson jargon, and chased Moss.
And Evans just kept dealing, setting down the Bruins in order in the fifth and seventh and facing just three in the sixth with a double play.
“Just seemed like we were swimming upstream a little bit most of the game,” Savage said. “Continuation game. We put up three, and then they put up four (on Monday). Then they come out and do a good job with two outs in the fourth, and they got two there. And it seemed like we were just trailing a little bit from the mound, mostly.”
LSU put up 12 hits in all off eight pitchers.
“We just really couldn’t contain them at the end of the day,” Savage said. “It was kind of a long couple of days, really.”
After LSU increased its lead to 8-3 in the seventh on a two-out RBI single by Daniel Dickinson that snapped 2-for-24 slump, Evans retired the first UCLA batter to start the eighth.
CHASE SHORES TO THE RESCUE
But Mulivai Levu followed with a single, and Evans hit Roman Martin. Williams replaced him and walked AJ Salgado. UCLA cut it to 8-4 with a fielder’s choice RBI by Brennan. Balsz then singled in another run, and it was 8-5. After Williams walked Dugger to load the bases, Chase Shores relieved.
Shores had walked the bases loaded just two appearances ago in the Super Regional, so he was used to the situation. And he got out of it with one pitch to Call, who bounced into a force out at second base to end the inning.
Shores returned to finish in the ninth and did with three ground outs to second base to end it as he earned his first save.
LSU and UCLA will pick up in the top of 4th at 10:03 am Tuesday. LSU up 5-3. pic.twitter.com/Zel7dQgzUE
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 17, 2025
After Eyanson spotted UCLA a 3-0 lead in the top of the first on four hits, the Tigers scored four on four hits in the bottom of the first to take a 4-3 lead. Jared Jones had the big blow with a three-run home run for the lead off starter Landon Stump. Frey and Milam singled after one out before Jake Brown’s RBI single cut the Bruins’ lead to 3-1 an That brought up Jones who hit his team-high 21st home run of the season.
LSU made it 5-3 in the third just before the weather delay. Stump walked Frey and Milam to open the inning, bringing on reliever Chris Grothues, who struck out Brown and Jones back-to-back. But Luis Hernandez stroked a “Golden” RBI single.
Eyanson threw just 44 pitches with 32 strikes in his three innings. Four of UCLA’s first five batters got hits around a ground out. Roman Martin’s RBI double put the Bruins up 1-0. AJ Salgado’s RBI single made it 2-0, and UCLA went up 3-0 on an RBI groundout by Payton Brennan. Eyanson faced just one over the minimum in the second and third, finishing with 44 pitches and 32 strikes.
“We need to recover and rebound,” Savage said.
As in quickly, while LSU takes the rest of the day off and a good part of Tuesday.
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