What Jay Johnson said after LSU's thrilling 4-3 Game 1 CWS win

LSU took the Game 1 of the College World Series 4-3 after a record-breaking night on the mound from Ty Floyd and a game-winning home run from Cade Beloso in the top of the 11th inning. 

Here’s what head coach Jay Johnson said had to say after the thrilling victory.

Opening statement

COACH JOHNSON: Great college baseball game. Two of the best teams in the country, a ton of execution by both teams from the mound. Great defensive plays. Really good, quality at-bats.

Ty was outstanding tonight. Really hard to put into words what that performance meant for the outcome of the game and for our team.

I think the eighth inning was the turning point, getting through the eighth, sending him back out there against their best hitters and striking out the side was amazing.

Riley obviously did what Riley’s done here and executed at a high level. Really proud of him for getting through that first and second one-out, I believe it was in the tenth with Langford and Caglianone.

And offensively we did a lot of things right. Getting Sproat out before the fifth inning was a good job by our team. He’s going to be a high draft pick. And we executed really well there.

Hit into tough luck with the bases loaded there with Tommy lining to third base. I thought that was a good at-bat. Sproat did a nice job wiggling out of it where we might have been able to add some on early.

But we stayed with it. And Tommy and Cade getting those swings were outstanding. On to tomorrow.

Q. Going with Ty, you’ve talked all year about he’s a winner, et cetera. But obviously the resiliency that he has to limit it, we talked about that as well. Just his performance tonight, what does it mean to you to see it?

COACH JOHNSON: It’s coaching. What I mean — no, what I mean by that, we need to have a reason to be there. When you have a guy that’s as talented as that, sometimes you have to get them to the point they understand what they need to be successful, give them a path to execute that and get them believing in themselves.

That’s really all we’ve tried to do over two years. And I mentioned he finished the season really strong last year. He was very unselfish at the beginning of this thing the first two weeks of the season. We needed him in the bullpen until we figured out who we were going to be. And he did that. Helped us get off to a good start there.

Like I said, he’s had a terrific season. Nothing better than that tonight. But we’re not sitting here in this position without Ty Floyd. I feel like he’s one of the most underrated, underappreciated players in college baseball this year.

Q. You said there was a specific turning point for you in the eighth inning to send him back out there. What went into that decision?

COACH JOHNSON: We had a spot where we thought we would go to Riley and it was kind of — we had Guidry down there warming up. I felt like we may get into a lengthy game, just with Neely throwing the ball as well as he was. Those are the two guys we were going to use and go to.

And so it was a little bit of a tricky spot. So for him to get two more hitters was a big deal. And then there was no way, with the way he pitched to Kurland and Langford, like, it was Caglionone was going to be his. And he deserved to finish that inning. I’m glad he did. Made some great pitches and allowed us to turn the ball over to Riley.

I think striking out the side with those three hitters right there, that’s legit. That’s pitching at the highest level, especially when he emptied the tank to put us in the position he did for the first seven innings.

Q. Second game you’ve won here in extra innings. I wonder, what goes into building that resiliency offensively especially when things weren’t seemingly going y’all’s way at the beginning of the night?

COACH JOHNSON: I don’t think we look at the game the same way people on the outside of the fence look at the game. I think we’re facing a team that’s won 53 games this year. We’re facing a pitcher — and that’s all we’ve faced here with our bracket. It’s got to be one of the best pitching brackets in College World Series history.

We just don’t get discouraged. We set the table in I believe it was the second or the third. And Tommy hits the line drive. And then Sproat made some pitches. I think that was more him than us.

I didn’t think anybody thought anything of leaving guys on base or any of those types of things. And we got good hitters, and part of what good hitters do they hit mistakes. Tommy was in the two-strike count right there. Fisher left the ball up, and he put a great swing on it.

Neely, I don’t even know if it was that bad of a pitch. I haven’t seen Cade’s home run. But he was in position to hit on time. He stayed short. He let the pitcher supply the power and put a great swing on it.

I think it’s we’re doing what we do. And the last inning before he hit the home run, we wanted to get kind of settled back down again. And if somebody’s going to hit a big home run in extra innings, maybe I’ll have the offensive meeting a little sooner because I like that.

Q. You come into these games after we’ve just been mesmerized by Skenes and Lowder. Feels like Ty has kind of like just flown by, but this is two performances now against really top-notch offenses where he basically looked like this the entire time?

COACH JOHNSON: He’s there. I think it’s probably just because of Paul — you know what I mean? — and Paul being so out of this world good. Nobody’s really paid attention to him, but the pro people are. He’s not going to last very long on the draft board. Somebody will be very, very happy with Ty Floyd.

I think he’ll pitch for a very long time. Like I mentioned with a couple of the other pitchers in the game on Thursday night, there’s a chance for it to be a short arc from Omaha to a big league stadium for him.

Q. Have you ever seen a story that’s quite like Cade’s in terms of being from the New Orleans area and here for five years and to be just coming up in these big clutch moments? I guess just talk about that perspective a little bit.

COACH JOHNSON: I’m really proud of him. I think I mentioned this earlier. He’s had a great tournament. So we’ve talked about him a lot, that he didn’t have a very good 2021 season. We needed to shift some things.

But my first impressions of him were he was all about the team. All he wanted to do was be a great player for LSU. He’s never mentioned pro baseball one time. It’s just what can I do to help, whether that’s leadership, fix my swing, improve my approach, maybe be able to play some first base.

And he wasn’t playing at the beginning of the season because Tommy hurt his shoulder and so we had to shift the DH position around. I just kind of had a feeling we’d get to our best team, he would be part of that. That was really clear. He never wavered in any of that.

I tell people all the time, him going down last year, that hurt our team dramatically. I think if you’re paying attention to the College World Series, you can clearly see why.

Q. Obviously we talked about Cade, but Gavin as well. Just the veteran presence on this team and its ability to see the moment and then stay in it?

COACH JOHNSON: I think you have to have two things to — you have to have a little more than two things. But you have to have two things to get here and to win here. You have to have future Major League players. That’s clear. Nobody’s getting here any more without future Major League players, and you have to have old players that really know what they’re doing. Those two guys really know what they’re doing.

The buy-in piece of it, to just a new deal, I mean they’ve made this for me as a new coach. Like those two guys have made this situation, program, culture, they’re as important as anybody. They don’t get talked about the same way because you’ve got Dylan and Paul, and those guys should be talked about, too, because they’re leaders and they’re special talents.

But when it was 2-0, we know who drove in the first two runs today. They’re sitting right in that spot in the order for a reason because I know what I’m going to get in terms of those at-bats.

Q. Wanted to ask about the catch with Josh, we saw it the other night with Tre’, those are game-deciders. We think about clutchness with pitching and hitting, what do you make of the elite defensive plays you’ve made that have changed games tonight?

COACH JOHNSON: Yeah, I think our team is super locked in. I’ve mentioned this before, Marc Wanaka, who positions our defense, is as good at that as anybody. Not college baseball, in baseball. That’s a tough one. And you’re chewing on the matchup, do you bring somebody in for Langford? He’s hitting .390, but I think I’ll go with the guy that’s pitched here now six times that’s just been filling up the zone and got the ball down just enough where he couldn’t elevate it. And he got it just either in or off the barrel enough. I can’t remember at this point.

And Josh was standing where he needed to be. Broke back and made a heck of a play. And he’s a good defender.

Somebody asked me, hey, are you going to keep going with him, he’s maybe not swinging the bat as well as some of the other guys here, that’s not even a thought because I know he’s going to walk, move the offense and he’s going to play great defense in left field. And that was probably the defensive play of the game tonight.