BATON ROUGE — For the first time in school history, LSU plays host to an NCAA Super Regional series against the UCLA Bruins, a school the Tigers have only played once in its 108 years of baseball. The best-of-three series begins Friday at 7 p.m. at a sold out Alex Box Stadium.
Game two of the series begins at 3 p.m. Saturday, and game three, if necessary, begins at 1 p.m. Sunday. All games can be heard live here on LSUsports.net. Launch the LSUsports.net Desktop Scoreboard to get live updated scores from all eight NCAA Super Regional Sites.
Second-seeded LSU (46-17) enters the Super Regional coming off a three-game Subregional sweep of Jackson State and Louisiana-Monroe last weekend during which it outscored its opponents 45-4 (19-1, 21-0, 5-3) at the Box. LSU has won seven straight games.
Meanwhile, unseeded UCLA (38-24), a second seed in subregional play, swept the Oklahoma City Subregional with wins over Deleware (13-12) and host Oklahoma (10-5, 11-3). UCLA has won 10 of its past 12 games.
Friday nights starters will be lefthander Brian Tallet (13-3, 3.20 ERA) for LSU and lefthander Rob Henkel (6-3, 5.59) for UCLA.
Henkel, who is projected to be a first round draft pick later this month, pitched game one of the Bruins’ subregional and was pulled with no outs in the sixth inning after giving up nine runs (seven earned) on seven hits while striking out nine and walking four. UCLA needed six unanswered runs over the final four innings to defeat third-seeded Delaware, 13-12. No. 3 starter Bobby Roe silenced the Blue Hens by allowing only one run (not earned) on four hits in four innings of relief.
UCLA had six errors in the Delaware game and totals 112 for the season. Both third baseman Josh Canales and shortstop Randall Shelley lead the team with 19 errors and each had two against the Blue Hens.
The Bruins’ second starter is sophomore righthander Josh Karp, who is “a candidate to be the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft” according to Baseball American. Karp (10-1, 4.72 ERA in 82 IP) pitched 7 1/3 innings in Bruins’ 10-5 win over Oklahoma, giving up four runs (two earned) on seven hits. He walked two and struckout two.
Lefthander Ryan Carter (3-1, 5.44 ERA in 22 appearances) and righthander Jon Brandt (7-5, 4.02 ERA in 21 appearances) are the Bruins’ best pitchers out of the bullpen. However, Carter started the subregional championship game against Oklahoma, throwing eight innings and allowing only three runs (two earned) on four hits. Brandt pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief in the subregional while allowing only one hit.
The only previous meeting between the two schools came in the third game of the Busch Challenge II at the Louisiana Superdome on March 27, 1988. LSU defeated the Bruins, 7-1, behind a complete game two-hit performance by First Team All-American Ben McDonald. McDonald struck out nine and walked one to earn All-Tournament honors.