BATON ROUGE — The Road to Omaha begins for LSU and the three other teams in the Baton Rouge Regional, as the Fighting Tigers host an NCAA regional for the 14th consecutive year and 15th time overall at Alex Box Stadium.
Top-seed LSU (40-19-1), the No. 2 national seed, opens the regional at 2 p.m. when it hosts Northeastern (27-22) of the America East Conference. Game two at 7 p.m. will pit first-time NCAA Tournament participant UNC Wilmington (38-21) of the Colonial Athletic Association against perennial Conference USA power Tulane (43-17).
The regional continues on Saturday with three games, as the losers of Friday’s game play an elimination game at 11 a.m., followed by the winner’s bracket game at 3 p.m. A second elimination game will follow at 7:30 p.m.
The championship round is set to start at 1 p.m. Sunday, and if a second title game is necessary, it will begin at approximately 5 p.m.
The Jumbo Sports Network will televise all games of the Baton Rouge regional across Louisiana. In Baton Rouge, the day games will be on WGMB-Fox 44 (cable channel 6), while the night games will be on WZUP-13 (cable channel 13).
All LSU games will be broadcast live on the LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge), with live audio available online at www.lsusports.net. Live statistics and recaps of all 16 regionals will be online at www.ncaasports.com.
The Tigers (No. 7 Collegiate Baseball, No. 9 Baseball America, No. 11 ESPN/USA Today) comes in as the regular season champion of the Southeastern Conference and finished second last week in the SEC Tournament in Birmingham.
“We play it one game at a time, and these guys don’t get too up for a future game,” LSU coach Smoke Laval said. “They don’t get too high after a win or too low after a loss, and that’s the one thing I’m most proud of with this ball club.”
LSU is a national seed for the second time since the NCAA adopted the current format in 1999. The Tigers were the No. 2 seed in 2000 in winning the national championship.
LSU will change its pitching rotation for the regional, and instead start senior right-hander Jake Tompkins (2-5, 5.34) on Friday. Tompkins has not started a game since May 6 against Loyola and pitched in a game since May 11 vs. Auburn due to tenderness in his arm.
Tompkins was the Most Outstanding Player of the 2002 Baton Rouge regional after picking up wins over Southern and Louisiana-Lafayette to lead the Tigers to the championship.
“I haven’t thrown for a couple of weeks, and I was really excited to find out that I would be starting,” Tompkins said. “I’m very happy that the coaches have shown this much confidence in me after an up and down season.”
The Tigers’ rotation for the remainder of the regional will revert to what it was each of the previous two weekends. Junior right-hander Nate Bumstead (10-2, 3.86), a second team All-SEC selection, will start in the second game, followed by senior right-hander Bo Pettit (9-2, 5.10) and freshman right-hander Justin Meier (7-3, 2.61).
At the plate, the Tigers are paced by junior shortstop Aaron Hill, the SEC Position Player of the Year. Hill, who is hitting .371 on the year with 56 RBI, was named to the All-Tournament team at the SEC Tournament after hitting .429 in the four games there.
Northeastern is making its first regional appearance since 1997, when the Huskies were swept in two games at the West regional in Palo Alto. The Boston school is after its first NCAA Tournament wins since the 1973 District 1 Tournament at Fenway Park.
“We understand what we’re up against, and certain things have to happen to upset a team like LSU,” Northeastern coach Neil McPhee said. “But this is baseball, and if you can get a break either here or there, you never know what will happen.”
The Huskies, who finished fourth in the America East regular season but won the conference tournament to qualify for the field of 64, will start ace right-hander Justin Hedrick (7-1, 2.63). The junior and native of Omaha has struck out 37 batters in his last three starts, including a 15-strikeout performance against Vermont in the America East tournament.
“Justin mixes his pitches well, and he throws them throughout different counts,” McPhee said. “He throws three, sometimes, four pitches in a game, and if he can get three of those pitches over for strikes, he can be really tough.”
The Huskies’ top hitter is sophomore third baseman Tim Bush, who is batting .357 with a team high 34 RBI. Bush has also made 10 appearances as a relief pitcher.
Northeastern is the second team from Boston to play in a regional at Baton Rouge, as Harvard finished third in the 1998 South II Regional behind LSU and Cal St. Fullerton.
LSU is 6-1 all-time against current members of the America East, with all of those games coming against Maine. The Tigers beat the Black Bears in the 1986 College World Series, and then won 2 of 3 in a 1992 series and swept a 1995 series.
The second game of the regional finds Tulane coach Rick Jones going up against his alma mater in UNCW. In fact, the last time the Seahawks were in the post-season, Jones was a senior on the UNCW team that played in the 1975 NAIA World Series.
“It has been quite some time since they (UNCW) have been this far, and I’m really excited for them,” Jones said. “I wish they could have gone to another regional so I could pull for them, but that’s not the case.”
The Green Wave, which finished third in the Conference USA regular season standings and was second to Southern Miss in the C-USA Tournament, is in Baton Rouge for the second consecutive year and the seventh time since 1986. The Green Wave was South I Regional runner-up to LSU in 1986, but has gone 1-2 in every appearance at The Box since.
“The only thing we can concentrate on is the postseason, so we need to play our best baseball,” Jones said.
The Green Wave is led by Golden Spikes award finalist Michael Aubrey, a three-year starter who was part of Tulane’s only College World Series team in 2001. Aubrey, a junior first baseman from Shreveport, is batting .418 with 17 home runs and 77 RBI.
“We were excited when we heard we were coming to The Box, because is the next best place to home we could have been sent,” Aubrey said. “We’ve been here before, and we know the competition as far as LSU goes. There shouldn’t be any surprises.”
Aubrey is one of three remaining starters from the 2001 club that beat LSU in the super regional at Zephyr Field to advance to Omaha, along with center fielder Jonny Kaplan and shortstop Tony Giarratano.
Tulane will start a pair of freshmen in the first two games of the regional. Friday’s starter will be right-hander Billy Mohl (6-2, 4.65), with Conference USA Freshman of the Year J.R. Crowel, (8-0, 2.98) a left-hander, going on Saturday.
“Having those experienced guys has had a calming influence on our young pitchers,” Jones said. “You’re always concerned when your most important phase of the game, pitching, is so young, but our guys have responded.”
UNCW finished second to Virginia Commonwealth in the Colonial Athletic Association regular season standings, and then came in third in the CAA tournament. The Seahawks will become the third current member of the CAA to play in a regional in Baton Rouge, along with VCU (2001) and James Madison (1995). East Carolina, now in C-USA, played in the 1999 Baton Rouge regional as a CAA member.
The Seahawks will start ace right-handed pitcher Brad Overton (7-2, 2.87) against the Green Wave. UNCW comes in with a team ERA of 3.55, but gave up 52 home runs in 59 games.
UNCW features an all-conference performer at the plate in senior center fielder Jamie Hemingway, who leads the Seahawks in batting average (.365), home runs (10) and RBI (57).
The winner of the Baton Rouge regional will advance to the super regional round of 16 next weekend to face the winner of the Hattiesburg regional (Baylor, Southern Miss, Southern and Murray St.). The dates for the super regionals will be announced on Monday, and the best-of-three series will start either on June 6 or 7.