- MCWS finals: Saturday-Monday, June 24-26
- Final championship game: Monday, June 26
June 16 (all times ET):
- Game 1 | Oral Roberts 6, TCU 5
- Game 2 | Florida 6, Virginia 5
- Game 3 | Wake Forest 3, Stanford 2
- Game 4 | LSU 6, Tennessee 3
- Game 5 | TCU 4, Virginia 3 | Virginia eliminated
- Game 6 | Florida 5, Oral Roberts 4
- Game 7 | Tennessee 6, Stanford 4 | Stanford eliminated
- Game 8 | Wake Forest 3, LSU 2
- Game 9 | TCU 6, Oral Roberts 1
- Game 10 | LSU 5, Tennessee 0
- Game 11 | Florida 3, TCU 2
- Game 12 | LSU 5, Wake Forest 2
- Game 13 | LSU 2, Wake Forest 0
- Game 1 | Florida vs. LSU | June 24, 7 p.m. | ESPN
- Game 2 | Florida vs. LSU | June 25, 3 p.m. | ESPN
- Game 3 | Florida vs. LSU | June 26, 7 p.m. | ESPN (If necessary)
LSU outlasts Wake Forest to make MCWS finals vs. Florida.
OMAHA, Neb. -- Jay Johnson has coached in the Men's College World Series finals before, and he has won his share of big games.To him, nothing compared with Thursday night.
"That is one of the greatest moments in my entire life, what happened on the field tonight," LSU's second-year coach said after his team's 2-0, 11-inning victory over No. 1 national seed Wake Forest clinched a spot in the MCWS finals.
Tommy White hit Camden Minacci's first pitch into the left-field seats to set up an all-SEC best-of-three finals matchup with Florida starting Saturday night. It will be a rematch of the 2017 finals that the Gators won for their first national title.
"Now that we're here, it's not a surprise," Johnson said. "This is the first team I've coached that I think can win a national championship. Hands down."
That's saying something. Johnson nearly won one in 2016 when he was at Arizona, which lost a three-game finals to Coastal Carolina.
LSU (52-16) became the first team to hand Wake Forest (54-12) consecutive losses. The Tigers had won 5-2 on Wednesday to set up a second bracket final.
"We just slayed a giant tonight," Johnson said.
Dylan Crews singled to left leading off the bottom of the 11th against Michael Massey (3-1), prompting Demon Deacons coach Tom Walter to call on his star closer. Minacci's first pitch to LSU's home run leader was a 90 mph slider, and White sent it out for his 23rd homer of the year.
"I thought a heater was coming," White said. "But I was very amped up and I saw a slider that was up. I put my bat head to it. That was about it."
It was a fitting end to one of the most anticipated non-championship MCWS games. LSU was the consensus No. 1 team in the major polls from the start of the season until May 8. Wake Forest was the consensus No. 1 the rest of the way. The teams split their first two games here this week.
The pitching matchup between LSU's Paul Skenes and Wake Forest's Rhett Lowder set this one apart from the first two. The two are projected top-10 overall picks in next month's amateur draft -- ESPN's Kiley McDaniel has Skenes going fifth and Lowder going ninth in his latest mock draft -- and they matched zeroes deep into the game. Wake Forest came in 18-0 in games Lowder had started.
Skenes allowed two hits and walked one before turning the game over to Thatcher Hurd (7-3) to start the ninth, and his nine strikeouts made him the SEC's single-season record holder. Skenes has 209 strikeouts in 122 2/3 innings; previous record holder Ben McDonald had 202 in 152 1/3 for LSU in 1989.
Skenes' fastball was a tick down from Saturday, when he hit at least 100 mph 46 times against Tennessee, but it was still plenty good -- as were his slider and changeup.
Lowder mixed his mid-90s fastball with a sharp slider and allowed three hits, walked two and struck out six in an efficient seven innings. Of his 88 pitches, 63 were strikes.
"Paul Skenes was fantastic, and Rhett matched him pitch for pitch," Walter said. "It was one of the best-pitched college baseball games I've ever seen. And Michael Massey behind him was dominant. And Hurd was, too, for LSU. Runs were hard to come by. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a way to scratch one across there those first 10 or so innings."
It was the fourth game in MCWS history that was scoreless through 10 innings (and first since Arkansas' 1-0 win over South Carolina in 14 innings in 1985). It also was the fourth time since aluminum bats were introduced in 1974 that both starting pitchers threw at least seven scoreless innings in an MCWS game.
Skenes was backed up by a spot-on defense, never more than in the eighth inning when Justin Johnson drew a leadoff walk and ended up on third on a wild pitch.
Johnson started running for home when Marek Houston bunted to the right side. First baseman Tre' Morgan charged, picked up the ball and made a diving flip to catcher Alex Milazzo, who tagged Johnson for the second out.
"He showed everyone in the country he's the most athletic first baseman out there. I saw him lay the bunt down, and Tre' came flying in to make the play and pick me up," said Skenes, who got out of the inning when left fielder Josh Pearson, playing shallow, caught Tommy Hawke's liner.
The Demon Deacons played without Nick Kurtz, a .353 hitter with 24 home runs. He aggravated a rib injury in pregame warmups and was scratched from the lineup 20 minutes before first pitch.
Wake Forest batted just .158 and totaled eight runs in four games in Omaha after outscoring its opponents 75-16 in five NCAA tournament games leading to the MCWS. The Demon Deacons were in the MCWS for the first time since 1955, when they won the national championship, and they don't expect to wait 68 years for their next appearance.
"I think just the evolution of Wake Forest baseball, to get to where we are now, it's something to be proud of," Lowder said. "This is the standard for Wake Forest baseball now."
| Saturday, Jun 24, 2023 - NCAA Baseball Game | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3441 | LSU | +120 | Ov | 9.5 | -120 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 3442 | Florida | -150 | Un | 9.5 | -110 |
Line already got knocked down to -130
Total moved to 10
How a Jell-O shot challenge became the second-biggest event in Omaha.
OMAHA, Neb. -- Rocco's Pizza and Cantina, which sits about 50 steps across the street from the site of the Men's College World Series, was predictably busy Sunday when manager Pat McEvoy was called to the patio to meet a guy interested in placing a large order. The man looked like an average fan, wearing an LSU cap and a green T-shirt with a logo for Murphy's, a now-defunct Baton Rouge bar.When someone told McEvoy that the man was the founder and CEO of Raising Cane's chicken, McEvoy was skeptical.
This time of year," McEvoy said, "everybody's somebody. I had no idea if he was telling the truth or if he was just messing with us."
But this wasn't a joke. Todd Graves, a Baton Rouge resident and entrepreneur, bought $30,000 worth of Jell-O shots -- 6,000 total drinks. He wanted to give LSU the MCWS Jell-O Shot Challenge record and fire up the fan base Monday right before the Tigers played No. 1 Wake Forest at the Men's College World Series.
LSU lost that night's baseball game but claimed the Jell-O shot record, and on Thursday ended up beating Wake Forest for the second time in two days to advance to the MCWS championship series.
The Jell-O Shot Challenge, in its fourth year, has become the second-most talked-about event in Omaha. Fan bases from the eight teams in the MCWS compete over who can ingest the most shots, which are color-coded for each squad. Stanford fans consumed wild-cherry red; Florida fans downed green apple. "We couldn't really get a good blue color," McEvoy said.
One dollar from each of the $5 shots will be donated to the shot-drinking team's local food bank, owner Kevin Culjat said, and another 50 cents will go to the Heartland Food Bank in Omaha.
McEvoy updates the totals four times a day, weaving his way through the sunburned masses to add the counts on a whiteboard. LSU, whose fan base travels better than any MCWS team's and particularly enjoys its food and drink, was the favorite to win the contest even before Graves flashed his credit card.
LSU's fans had 29,023 shots on the board by Thursday; the other seven fan bases combined have not consumed as many Jell-O shots as the Tigers. Ole Miss' 2022 record was 18,777.
Graves had initially planned to order 5,000 shots, which was enough Monday to break the record. But when he found out that country singer Merle Haggard apparently owned the Guinness World Record for buying the largest round of drinks, Graves decided he wanted to shatter that, too.
Haggard set the record in 1983, when, according to Wineandspirits.com, he bought 5,095 shots of Canadian Club for his fans at Billy Bob's Texas. Graves said he's a big fan of Haggard's. But there is some debate over that record, according to the website, as a British brewery bought 412 drinks for customers at a pub celebrating Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday in 2016. That claim is based on gallons consumed.
In an email to ESPN Wednesday, a spokesperson for Guinness World Records North America Inc. said that it doesn't currently monitor a record title similar to the "largest round of drinks." It was fun while it lasted.
Graves said he knew spending $30,000 on alcohol might seem frivolous or "cheesy," but he decided to do it when he found out that a portion of the proceeds goes to charity.
"You know what, man? I started from nothing," Graves said. "I had to commercial fish in Alaska to start my first restaurant ... You work hard and become successful and then you're able to buy all these LSU fans a shot, it feels pretty cool.
"It's a good way to celebrate with others."
He stood behind the bar Monday when the leaderboard was updated at 5 p.m. and the Jell-O shot record was officially broken. Graves raised his arms in the air as the crowd chanted "L-S-U." Culjat said that everyone who was 21 and raised their ID in the air received a purple Jell-O shot.
Obviously," Culjat said, "you can't serve 6,000 shots at the same time. It's not legally right and it's not morally right. So we just agreed that what was going to happen was that he's purchasing the 6,000 to get the record and also obviously to donate to charity.
"So everybody got one; they all did them at once. And then after the game, when people came in three hours later ... we gave them one as well. I don't know what the final total was, but everyone got one who was here."
Rocco's is across the street from Charles Schwab Field, and drinking competitions among fans have gone on in the spot for years. In 2011, when Florida played South Carolina in the finals, both teams' fans wanted their own shots, so McEvoy invented separate concoctions. Six months later, he was sitting at a dueling piano bar when Creighton and Nebraska were facing off in basketball, and dueling chants of "Go Big Red" and "Let's Go Jays" filled the air.
Thousands of dollars flew into the tip jars that night, McEvoy said, and it made him think about the possibilities for the MCWS. He decided to make signature shots for all eight teams.
When Culjat bought the establishment, he decided to do Jell-O shots because they're easier to make. Five years later, the demand for the shots is so deep that this year he hired Tennessee-based company Jevo, which uses automated gelatin shot makers and Keurig-like cartridges to mass-produce the drinks.
Culjat said 42% of Rocco's yearly revenue comes from the two weeks each summer during the MCWS. He's not a fan of social media but concedes that Twitter has helped the challenge explode into a national curiosity.
McEvoy started the CWS Jell-O Shot Challenge account on a Monday last year during the MCWS and had seven followers. By the end of the MCWS, that number was 17,000. Today the account has more than 36,000 followers. The phone rings constantly, McEvoy said, with callers asking for a leaderboard update.
On Tuesday, before the LSU game, Tennessee fan Bobby Bellenfant downed an orange-colored shot with his sister, Raychel. Bellenfant said he heard about the bar, and the challenge, through Twitter. He glanced up at the board. The Volunteers had mustered up just over 1,800 shots.
"I don't think we're gonna get there," he said. "But it goes to a good cause, so we're glad to do it."
A few minutes later, McEvoy updated the board, and Tigers fan Jason Malasovich played "Tiger Rag" on his trumpet while a sea of purple-clad fans danced. LSU was on top again, and the party won't stop until the Tigers lose.
Actually, it probably won't stop then, either.
"I think they need to put more alcohol in those shots," LSU fan Jesse Lamonte said as the crowd began to head for the stadium.
Alabama baseball loses home-run leader Colby Shelton to Florida
Colby Shelton, who led Alabama baseball in home runs this past season, announced he will transfer to Florida on Thursday.
www.tuscaloosanews.com
SEC foes Florida and LSU ready for championship battle.
OMAHA, Neb. -- LSU and Florida.The adversaries in the best-of-three finale of the 2023 Men's College World Series (Saturday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN) know each other well, but also, they really kind of don't.
Inarguably the standard bearer for college baseball's modern era is LSU, winner of six MCWS titles, but none since 2009. The last time the Tigers made the finals, they were denied that seventh title in 2017 by ... Florida.
Florida is in the conversation as college baseball's best program during that LSU title drought, making its eighth trip to Omaha since 2010 and its fourth finals appearance since 2005. Yet somehow the Gators have flown, er, crawled under the national radar.
It's a duel of dynasties. A program seeking to re-establish the spot atop the sport while the other fights to remind people they have constructed their own power program.
"I can see the similarities, for sure," admitted Cade Beloso, aka the "Creole Bambineaux," a fifth-year slugger and spiritual "glue guy" in the LSU clubhouse. "I think you have to be alike to both be in this spot, playing for a national championship."
The Tigers and Gators certainly looked similar as they clomped around in their cleats through the tunnels of Charles Schwab Field, aka The Chuck, on Friday for batting practice. What LSU head coach Jay Johnson described as "real grown men rosters" packed with very large baseball-playing humans posting very large baseball player numbers. But the way those rosters were procured are as different as they are the same, huge new-age transfer portal additions mixed with old-school homegrown recruits.
Florida boasts the third-ranked ESPN.com MLB draft prospect in left fielder Wyatt Langford, who hit a ballpark record 456-foot ninth inning home run to defeat Virginia in the second game of the MCWS. The only players ranked above him are Tigers. Top-ranked LSU outfielder Dylan Crews is already considered one of the greatest hitters in recent college baseball memory, hitting .423 with 18 home runs and 69 RBIs. Teammate Paul Skenes, ranked second on that MLB prospect list, has been just as prolific on the mound. He's 12-2 with a 1.69 ERA and a just-set SEC career strikeouts mark of 209. Next year's MLB draft is likely to be topped by Florida's Jac Caglianone, aka "Jactani," college baseball's Swiss Army Knife, hitting .325 with 31 home runs and 84 RBI while boasting a pitching record of 7-3 with 85 strikeouts.
I think initially they were identified by their offense and rightfully so, they've got some star power in their lineup and I think our team was the same way," observed Kevin O'Sullivan, now in his 16th season as Florida's head coach. During his tenure, the Gators have never missed the NCAA tournament and have made eight trips to Omaha. "Obviously, they had Skenes who has had arguably the best season in the history of college baseball. But yet we've got Brandon Sproat (8-3, 127 Ks) who came back to school and we have Hurston Waldrep (a Southern Miss transfer who is 10-3), of course, and Jac. So, I think the biggest similarity that I see just from the outside looking in is the improvement with their bullpen over the course of the year, and I think the same could be said about us as well."
Both teams are led by a couple of Gen Xers whose baseball upbringings have brought them to this moment as college baseball coaches in the MCWS. Johnson was raised in the world of West Coast ball in California, Nevada and Arizona. O'Sullivan grew up full-on Sunshine State to the core, still leaning on the teachings of his mentor, Bob Shaw, an old-school former big leaguer who pitched in the World Series for the Detroit Tigers and won an American Legion World Series as a head coach with O'Sullivan as his catcher.
LSU and Florida are both members of the SEC, the league that has produced the last three MCWS champions (8 of the past 13), had at least one team in 13 of the past 14 finals and this weekend will have both teams in the finals for the fourth time since 2011. But even though they are leaguemates, when these two titans of college baseball meet Saturday night on the sport's biggest stage, it will be the first time they have faced off since March 27, 2022 -- a span of 454 days.
They are so unfamiliar that when LSU first baseman-turned-folk hero Tre' Morgan was asked Friday morning for an assessment of his Florida foes, he politely shrugged his shoulders and passed the task to teammate Crews, who knew about the other roster only because he's a Florida native and grew up playing youth league ball with a gaggle of Gators.
To be clear, none of that was a diss.
"We concentrate on our side of the bracket and the opponents that we know we will see when we get here," Johnson explained, saying his team came to Omaha with folders stuffed with information on Stanford, TCU and Wake Forest, the other teams on their side of the CWS schedule. They also had "three empty folders and one labeled Florida 2022, waiting to see who we would hopefully have to face when we made it to the finals."
Florida also admitted to not having started a ton of in-depth title series research on LSU. But the Gators, having gone 3-0 over the first six days of the MCWS -- resulting in two days off -- did watch the Tigers as baseball fans, sitting in the grandstands for Thursday night's epic semifinal contest when LSU outlasted Wake Forest in eleven innings to advance.
It has been awesome to watch, just as a fan of baseball, because all of these games have been so great, including the ones we've been in. I'll never forget this week, the rest of my life," said Florida catcher and anchor BT Riopelle, referring to the fact that nine of the 13 MCWS games played to this point were determined by two runs or less. All three of the Gators' wins have been one-run victories. "But as great as it has been, the time for reflection on all of that is down the road."
Riopelle's comment set a tone Friday that was hugely shared between the teams. Wonder and entertainment are not the goals. Being in a dogpile either Sunday afternoon or Monday night is. That's why, even as both teams looked super loose during Friday's practice sessions at The Chuck.
"Coach has always preached to treat every game as if it is championship game, even if it's a midweek game in March," Crews said. "The idea is that when we reach our ultimate goal, playing in a championship game, it will feel normal. Every trip is a business trip. But now here we are, in that game, so it feels like business."
LSU will have to go about its business without Skenes, who threw eight shutout innings Thursday night, unless the championship series does reach a Game 3 on Monday night and even still, he likely won't be ready for another lengthy start. Florida's staff is rested, but it's their biggest bats who need to wake up. Cade Kurland, Langford and Caglianone, who came to Omaha having raked a combined 66 homers and 216 hits, have scuffled at The Chuck with a combined 4-for-38 at the plate. That's a .105 batting average.
"There is a real adjustment to be made here in this ballpark, a big place where runs and extra base hits can be hard to come by," O'Sullivan said. "But we're both in the same boat. So, add that to your similarities list."
It's a long list. And at the top of that inventory a similar goal: Win the 2023 Men's College World Series.
"You want to play against the best," Morgan said as he headed out to the field practice. "I think that whenever we are done here, whichever team wins, no one can doubt that we did that."
Florida beat LSU 2 games to 0 few years ago to win it all
| YEAR | CHAMPION (RECORD) | COACH | SCORE | RUNNER-UP | SITE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Ole Miss (42-23) | Mike Bianco | 4-2 | Oklahoma | Omaha, Neb. |
| 2021 | Mississippi State (50-18) | Chris Lemonis | 9-0 | Vanderbilt | Omaha, Neb. |
| 2020 | Canceled due to Covid-19 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 2019 | Vanderbilt (59-12) | Tim Corbin | 8-2 | Michigan | Omaha, Neb. |
| 2018 | Oregon State (55-12-1) | Pat Casey | 5-0 | Arkansas | Omaha, Neb. |
| 2017 | Florida (52-19) | Kevin O'Sullivan | 6-1 | LSU | Omaha, Neb. |
Thank you HM
