Dylan Crews has 'a lot of respect' for Florida

LSU baseball is through to the finals of the College World Series after beating Wake Forest for a second straight time this week, setting up a matchup with intra-conference foe Florida for all the marbles. Despite the rivalry that exists between the two schools, LSU star Dylan Crews is approaching the series as a good sport and says he has all the respect in the world for the Tigers’ opponent.

“I have a lot of respect for them,” said Crews of the Gators. “I’m from Florida so I know a bunch of those guys on the team. Played with them. I have a lot of respect for them. They have got great starting pitchers, a great bullpen, great lineup, no holes in their lineup.”

LSU just made it through a gauntlet having to take down Wake Forest twice, but Crews knows that the road to the trophy doesn’t get any easier against an elite Florida team that the Tigers will need to beat twice.

“So we’ve got to be ready. We’ve got to be ready to go. It’s not going to be a cake walk. We’ve got to be mentally prepared and ready to go,” says Dylan Crews.

LSU players share emotions of making title series

In the postgame after the second Wake Forest win, Paul Skenes shared that the national title has been the team’s goal since the very start of the season when they first met up.

“The whole year we knew we could do it. That was the primary goal,” said Skenes. “We had a meeting like January 14th or something like that, and the goal for this season was to win a national championship. And everything along the way would be a bonus. This was what we’ve had our eyes on all year. And it’s really cool to be here now.”

As their goals get closer, LSU stays playing loose and confident, not letting the pressure get to them, according to Tommy White.

“Yeah, pretty much the same thing. But just going to come down to execution, just playing the game one pitch at a time. We know what to do. We know what we’ve got to do. And we’re just going to play our game, hope for the best,” he said of the opportunity to play in the title series.

The Tigers have expected this sort of run all year and are now making it happen.