Jay Johnson says LSU played 'complete baseball' in regional round

The LSU baseball team made quick work of the Baton Rouge regional and were one of the few hosts to storm right through with three straight wins. The Tigers rode a terrific start from ace Paul Skenes on Friday to advance past Tulane 7-2, then picked up a pair of wins over Oregon State, the second easier than the first with the Beavers narrowly falling 6-5 on Saturday before LSU thumped them 13-7 to end play at Tiger Stadium for the weekend.

Given the unpredictable nature of the tournament and once again the number of non-nationally-seeded teams that made it through to the Super Regional, advancing and especially winning three straight games to advance past your own regional is still a big success. Aside from Wake Forest and maybe a few other clubs, LSU looked as good as any contender this past weekend.

Head coach Jay Johnson certainly thinks so and had rave reviews for his team’s performance after the second Oregon State victory.

“Yeah, I think it was very complete baseball. I think it was complementary baseball,” Johnson said of the entire weekend. He then went on to compliment Skenes and the clean baseball the Tigers played as a whole.

“I remember the first game in the season, you know, Paul went out and threw a shutout. We played error-less defense and hit a few homers and moved the ball with runners in scoring position and talked about that being a good model. And sometimes we’ve done two of the three well. And usually when we’ve done two of the three well we win because we have really good players that have a good plan. But I feel good about how we executed and played complementary baseball this weekend.”

No complaints from the head coach after a tremendous opening weekend of play on their own home turf. With a win, LSU also earned the right to host a second weekend in the Super Regional round, this time against No. 12 seeded Kentucky, who the Tigers bested narrowly two games out of three in Baton Rouge earlier in the year.

This UK team has shown they can compete on LSU’s home field and are no plucky Cinderella. The ‘Cats also won their own regional and, as noted, were rated No. 12 by the committee. Two of the best ball clubs in the country are about to meet for a second time this season on the LSU campus.