“DO YOU BELIEVE?”
Tigers Claim Fifth National Title With Thrilling Victory Over Stanford
14-0, 13-0.
The above figures characterize the LSU Tigers’ remarkable journey to the school’s fifth national championship in 10 seasons.
14-0 was the score of LSU’s May 14 contest versus Alabama, and the Tigers, unfortunately, were on the wrong end of that tally. It was a humiliating way for the SEC Western Division champions to end the regular season. However, LSU would not taste defeat again.
Which brings us to 13-0, the Tigers’ post-season record. LSU won 13 straight games en route to the NCAA title, as the Tigers were 4-0 in the SEC Tournament, 3-0 in the NCAA Regional, 2-0 in the NCAA Super Regional and 4-0 in the College World Series. The 2000 Tigers became the first team in school history to finish undefeated in the post-season. No one could have forecast this outcome for a squad which had just a 6-5 record after its first 11 regular-season games.
Not only did LSU finish the post-season undefeated, it also finished the CWS championship game with a flourish.
Trailing Stanford 5-2 with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Tigers appeared to have little hope, especially with Cardinal ace Justin Wayne on the mound. Wayne, the fifth overall pick in the 2000 major league draft, had subdued LSU’s bats, allowing no hits while recording seven strikeouts in 3.1 relief innings. In fact, Wayne and Stanford starter Jason Young had combined to hold the Tigers hitless since the second inning, when left field Jeremy Witten singled during a two-run LSU rally. From then, however, the Tigers were stifled at the plate, as LSU managed to hit just one ball out of the infield, a fourth-inning fly to center by DH Wally Pontiff.
LSU’s only highlight after the second inning had come on defense, when right fielder Ray Wright robbed Stanford’s Edmund Muth of a third-inning, two-run homer by leaping above the wall to make a sensational catch.
Thus, when LSU team captain Blair Barbier stepped to the plate with one out in the eighth, everything pointed toward a Stanford victory celebration. After all, the Cardinal were just five outs away from a national championship with arguably the best pitcher in the country on the mound.
Barbier, undaunted, envisioned a much different scenario. Prior to the inning, he had gathered his teammates in the dugout, imploring them to remain focused, asking them, “DO YOU BELIEVE?” He hoped his words would spark a positive reaction, yet he knew they would be meaningless should he fail in this at-bat, likely the final at-bat of the senior third baseman’s brilliant college career.
So, Barbier stood in against Wayne and battled for his team’s survival. He stubbornly fouled off several two-strike offerings, before finally ripping a line drive over the left field wall of Rosenblatt Stadium. Barbier’s solo shot was his third homer of the College World Series, and the Tigers had life, now down by two runs.
Pontiff then drew a walk from Wayne, but the Stanford right-hander retired center fielder Cedrick Harris on a fly ball to right field for the second out. Left fielder Jeremy Witten, who was hitting just .200 (3-for-15) in the CWS, would be Wayne’s next challenge.
In his only other at-bat against Wayne, Witten, a fifth-year senior, fanned on just three pitches. And, in this at-bat, Witten again quickly fell behind in the count. Knowing that this was perhaps the final at-bat of his college career, indeed the final at-bat of his entire baseball career, Witten would not succumb to Wayne’s darting slider. Instead, he launched a soaring liner into the left-center field seats, just out of the reach of Cardinal left fielder Andy Topham.
The Rosenblatt Stadium crowd of over 24,000 erupted as Witten triumphantly round the bases, celebrating just his seventh homer of the season. LSU 5, Stanford 5 . . . and the drama was just beginning.
Wayne retired Wright on a liner to left to end the eighth inning, but Stanford could not recover its lost momentum. LSU right-hander Trey Hodges, who had kept the Tigers in the game with three scoreless relief innings, easily retired the Cardinal in the top of the ninth, setting the stage for the game’s final act.
LSU shortstop Ryan Theriot grounded Wayne’s first pitch of the ninth into left field to place the winning run on first base. Head coach Skip Bertman, electing not to bunt Theriot down to second base, allowed second baseman Mike Fontenot to swing away. Fontenot skillfully drew a full-count walk from Wayne, placing the Tigers’ destiny in the potent bat of catcher Brad Cresse.
Cresse, like Barbier and Witten before him, was standing at the plate for the final time in an LSU uniform. The nation’s leader in home runs (30) and RBI (105), the senior was just 1-for-12 in the College World Series. He had struck out in his two previous at-bats against Wayne, who desperately needed a double play to work his way out of the jam.
As he had in his first two encounters with Cresse, Wayne opened with his devastating slider. Strike one. Wayne fired the slider again, but this time Cresse smashed it, sending the ball sharply into left field. Theriot raced around third base as Topham picked up the ball and heaved it toward home plate. But, the throw was up the line and Theriot slid safely across the plate as his teammates burst from the third-base dugout to embrace him. The wave of jubilant Tigers then moved to the infield, engulfing Cresse at first base.
LSU 6, Stanford 5. The Tigers had secured the school’s fifth NCAA title since 1991 with a courageous effort, scoring four runs in their final two at-bats to erase a four-run deficit. Blair Barbier’s eighth-inning challenge to his teammates was answered in resounding fashion. The 2000 LSU Tigers, without question, did believe.