Jay Johnson sends message to LSU players ahead of elimination game vs. Tennessee

Wake Forest narrowly edged out LSU in a pivotal College World Series game on Monday evening, knocking in the winning run the bottom of the eighth inning to wind up winning 3-2 to move on to the finals of pool play. Now, the Tigers will have to face the team they just beat the other day: fellow SEC squad Tennessee, who kept their season alive with a win over Stanford yesterday.

The loss to the No. 1 seeded Demon Deacons is tough to swallow, especially given how close the game was and the great opportunity LSU had to score more runs than they did in the top of the eighth. Alas, they can’t dwell on those mishaps very long and need to refocus for a win or go home matchup with the Volunteers tonight. Head coach Jay Johnson says there’s no reason to hang their heads after a great game against perhaps the best team in the country. In the postgame, he stressed the importance of getting back off the mat and bringing their best vs. Tennessee despite the loss to the Deacons.

Here were those comments:

“I think it would be very easy to crawl in the hole with disappointment. That’s a great college baseball game that we came up on the short end of the stick. It really came down to — Brock Wilken hit a ball up the middle with no outs and got the guy in from third. And then he made a heck of a play on that play. Then they got an RBI hit there in the eighth and we didn’t when we had our one chance right there.

“So that could be deflating. But I shared with them two things. Number one, I’ve had a team in this position before. Lost a 1-0 heartbreaker to Oklahoma State and then won three consecutive games to play for a national championship. Then the very next year this program did the same thing. And they beat probably one of the best teams in modern college baseball history twice to get that opportunity.”

Johnson has been around long enough to know that it’s very possible for LSU to win three in a row to make it to the championship series. He certainly believes this group is capable of such a rally.

“And I have all the faith in the world in our team that we can do that. So let’s stick to what we do. And if we do that well, then we’ll be in a good spot.”