BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - The LSU Tigers rallied once more to advance to the Super Regionals with 5-2 victory over Rice.
The Tigers trailed 2-0 through the first six innings, struggling against the Owls' starter, Willy Amador, until a sac fly by Bryce Jordan in the bottom of the seventh scored Jake Fraley to cut Rice's lead in half. An incredible hit-and-run single by Kramer Robertson advanced Fraley to third base.
Greg Deichmann followed with a two-run homer, which was his 10th of the season, hitting the ball to dead center over the 405 foot mark to give LSU the lead, 3-2. Deichmann was named MVP of the BR Regional after going 9 for 15 with three runs and 10 RBIs in four games.
The Tigers added two more insurance runs in the eighth inning with a solo home run by Michael Papierski and a two-out, RBI double by Robertson to score Fraley to give LSU a three-run advantage.
"Greg got MVP, but we don't win without Jared Poche. He pitched like he didn't want this to be his last game at LSU," Robertson said.
Poche did not start the game, but came in to pitch for the Tigers in the bottom of the third when Rice was leading, 2-0. He earned the victory after he retired 16 straight batters.
Poche was nearly perfect over six innings on three-days rest, only allowing one hit with six strike outs. On Friday night, Poche beat Utah Valley, 7-1, going six innings as the starter.
"Coach said two, three, maybe four innings," Poche said.
"I wasn't going to take him out and have 10,000 fans yelling at me," said LSU head coach Paul Mainieri about staying with Poche. "He's pitched lots of great games, but probably never one as important as that."
LSU lost to Rice on Monday night, 10-6, forcing the deciding game on Tuesday. However, the Tigers were able to come back and claim the Baton Rouge Regional title.
Hunter Newman took the mound in the ninth inning to get his eighth save of the season.
LSU's starter Jake Latz was pulled in the second inning. The Owls scored single runs in both the first and second innings.
Rice coach Wayne Graham said Robertson and Poche were the stars of the game for LSU.
By winning the BR Regional, LSU claimed its 22nd regional championship in 29 appearances and set an SEC record with its 12th trip to Super Regionals.
The No. 8 overall seed LSU will host Coastal Carolina this weekend for a best-of-three NCAA Super Regional series. Coastal Carolina beat North Carolina State, 7-5, to win the Raleigh Regional on Tuesday afternoon.
The first game of the Super Regional is set for Saturday at 8 p.m. CT and it will air on ESPNU. Game 2 will be played at 8 p.m. Sunday on ESPN2 or ESPNU. If necessary, a third game will be held Monday with three possible start times: 12, 3 or 6 p.m. CT.
There were four LSU players named to the All-Tournament Team: pitcher Alex Lange, first baseman Greg Deichmann, shortstop Kramer Robertson, and outfielder Jake Fraley. WAFB Sports Director Steve Schneider pointed out that, incredibly, Poche was not named after winning two games in the regional.
Rice had six players named to the team including pitcher Glenn Otto, catcher Hunter Kopycinski, second baseman Grayson Lewis, third baseman Connor Teykl, and outfielder Charlie Warren.
Rice's Dominic DiCaprio tied at designated hitter with Southeastern's Daniel Midyett, and Utah Valley outfielder Craig Brinkerhoff rounded out the All-Tournament Team.