OMAHA, Neb. – LSU coach Paul Mainieri announced Friday that sophomore left-hander Jared Poche’ will be the Tigers’ starting pitcher for Sunday’s College World Series game versus TCU.
TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said the Horned Frogs will counter with senior right-hander Preston Morrison.
Mainieri and Schlossnagle made their starting pitcher announcements during a press conference that also featured the other two head coaches in the bottom half of the CWS bracket – Rick Vanderhook of Cal State Fullerton and Tim Corbin of Vanderbilt.
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Poche’, a native of Lutcher, La., is 9-1 this season with a 2.91 ERA and 69 strikeouts in 105 innings. He has been exceptional in two NCAA Tournament appearances, defeating UNC Wilmington in the NCAA Regional and Louisiana-Lafayette in the NCAA Super Regional.
Poche’ is 2-0 in those two NCAA appearances with a 0.55 ERA, two walks and 15 strikeouts in 16.1 innings. He allowed just one earned run on 11 hits in the two NCAA games.
“Poche’ has been our opening game starter for most of the year in our weekend series,” Mainieri said. “He’s the ‘grizzled veteran’ in his sophomore year on our staff with all the freshmen pitchers. He’s pitched two terrific games in a row in the postseason. So he’s pitching with a lot of confidence.
“He’s got a little bit of experience, a lot of moxie, and we just thought that, hey, the first game’s important, but the second game is equally as important. So the bottom line is we’ve got two starting pitchers that need to perform well for us if we have any chance to win this thing.”
LSU’s other primary starting pitcher is freshman right-hander Alex Lange, the National Freshman Pitcher of the Year who is 11-0 this season with a 1.89 ERA and 121 strikeouts in 105 innings.
Morrison has an 11-3 mark and a 2.55 ERA this season for TCU, and he has recorded 86 strikeouts in 113 innings.
The Tigers practiced for approximately 50 minutes Friday at TD Ameritrade Park, site of the CWS games since 2011. The Tigers practiced Thursday afternoon at Creighton University after arriving at the Omaha airport at about 1 p.m.
LSU will practice again on Saturday afternoon at Bellevue East High School in Omaha, and the Tigers will face TCU at 2 p.m. Sunday in a game that will be televised by ESPN.
LSU is playing in its 17th College World Series and its second at TD Ameritrade Park. The Tigers dropped consecutive games to UCLA and North Carolina in 2013 in their first trip to the ball park, which opened in 2011. Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha served as the site of the College World Series from 1950-2010.
“I hope we’re better prepared,” Mainieri said. “It was much different than the atmosphere that we experienced at Rosenblatt in a lot of little ways. Just the driving up to the stadium with the bus and the parking lot as opposed to here, where you drive up to a door. Just the whole atmosphere is a lot different, and a lot of it caught me by surprise, quite frankly.
“I don’t think I had the team as prepared as I should have had them. Now, everything is more focused just on playing the games and realizing that’s what we’re here for is to go out there and play as well as we can on the field, and the bases are still the same distance as what the mound is. The fences are kind of far. The ball doesn’t travel as well. All that stuff’s been well documented. I don’t think that’s going to affect us much. We’ve played in big ballparks before, and I think we’ve got a team that can handle whatever circumstances. I just think the familiarity will help in a lot of different ways.”