LSU Baseball to Face Gonzaga in Second Elimination Game of Regional
LSU found out its opponent late Saturday evening when Oregon knocked off Gonzaga 7-3 in the winners bracket of the Eugene regional. For the second time in three days, the Tigers will take on a Zags team whose pitching gave LSU fits in a game one shutout loss.
But the good news for the purple and gold is that they won't have to face pitcher Alek Jacob on Sunday afternoon at 5 p.m. on SEC Network. LSU was also able to wake up the bats a bit in a 6-5 win over Central Connecticut State as Dylan Crews blasted two home runs in the win and Giovanni DiGiacomo provided the Tigers with some great momentum heading into Sunday's game with a walkoff hit in extra innings.
"The biggest thing going through my mind [after the hit] was that we were going to get to play again tomorrow," DiGiacomo said. "Each game, we can't look into the future too far, can't worry about what happened yesterday. You've gotta take each game as it comes and just try to win them and do everything we can. Excited for whoever we get to face."
LSU will likely roll with AJ Labas on the mound for game three according to caoch Paul Mainieri. It's been a bit of a struggle for Labas over the last few starts as he hasn't really looked like the same pitcher since his complete game against Ole Miss over a month ago.
Labas is all about location and facing a team that likes to hit for contact, it'll be important he locates his pitches and forces a lot of ground balls and popflys to keep the runs down. As for the offense, the Tigers were shut out and were forced into many lazy popouts in the loss to Gonzaga so putting the ball in play and converting on opportunities will be the primary key.
A loss sends the Tigers home but a win would result in another day for Paul Mainieri and his team to continue its season.