GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The dividends from LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class of 2025 continues.
Freshman left fielder Derek Curiel and freshman right-handed pitcher Casan Evans have each been named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Freshmen All-American team, and no other program placed two on the first team.
DEREK CURIEL DELIVERS AGAINST HIS PROBLEM AREA – A LEFTY
Curiel, who signed with Johnson out of Orange Lutheran High in West Covina, California, leads the Tigers with a .347 batting average and with 19 doubles. He also has 52 RBIs and seven home runs, usually from the lead-off spot. Curiel was 4-for-7 with five RBIs, one home run, one double and six runs scored in the Tigers sweep of West Virginia in the Super Regional over the weekend that sent the Tigers to Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series.
LSU GETS PRIME TIME GAME SATURDAY
No. 6 national seed LSU (48-15) plays No. 3 seed Arkansas (48-13) at 6 p.m. Saturday on ESPN at Charles Schwab Field.
If LSU is to go North for the summer, Casan Evans may have to deliver again, sooner or later in this Super Regional:https://t.co/QbteUHJYQX
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 6, 2025
Evans, who signed with the Tigers from St. Pius High in Houston, is 4-1 on the season with a 1.90 ERA and six saves. He has struck out 65 in 47 and a third innings. Evans, LSU’s third starter and a long and short reliever, did not pitch over the weekend in the Super Regional as he wasn’t needed. The Tigers swept, and neither of the two games they won were close late.
In the NCAA Regional do-or-die game against Arkansas-Little Rock a week ago Monday, he picked up the win by allowing just one run on four hits in six innings of relief with a career-high 12 strikeouts, including nine straight.
“I’ve seen it before where a pitcher comes in and changes the tempo of the game,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if I’ve seen it in a game of that magnitude like that. He struck out nine hitters in a row. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before. And the intensity, the aggressiveness, the confidence, really the enthusiasm that he was pitching with, it lifted everybody. It lifted the fans, and the fans really lifted the team when we needed it.”
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