LSU Baseball coach gives thoughts on playing Tennessee in College World Series
The Tennessee Vols will see some familiar faces in their first College World Series game this weekend in Omaha. Tennessee is set to take on conference rival LSU on Saturday night at 7:00 PM ET. The winner of the showdown between the Vols and the Tigers will take on the winner of the Wake Forest/Stanford […]
The Tennessee Vols will see some familiar faces in their first College World Series game this weekend in Omaha.
Tennessee is set to take on conference rival LSU on Saturday night at 7:00 PM ET.
The winner of the showdown between the Vols and the Tigers will take on the winner of the Wake Forest/Stanford game that will be played earlier on Saturday. The loser will head to the loser's bracket to take on the loser of the Wake Forest/Stanford game.
Tennessee played LSU earlier this season, dropping two of three to the Tigers in Baton Rouge.
The Vols lost the first two games of the series before salvaging the series via a 14-7 win.
Tennessee will almost certainly face star LSU pitcher Paul Skenes on Saturday in Omaha. Skenes gave up one run on five hits across seven innings in a 5-2 win against the Vols in March.
UT and LSU were tied 2-2 in that matchup before the Tigers scored three unearned runs with two outs in the eighth inning.
Tennessee, however, is playing much better baseball now than they were in late March.
And it's not lost on LSU head coach Jay Johnson that the Vols aren't the same team they were a few months ago.
"Great team. Great talent. It should be a great night for college baseball," said Johnson of playing Tennessee in Omaha.
“They’ve made some switches to how they lined up their pitching, obviously, and they have a great staff,” added Johnson. “They’re going to be able to save runs because they have a good staff. Offensively, a lot of their main guys are still playing and are playing better and playing more confidently. Much like us, they had a very tough stretch to begin SEC play. They realigned some things with how they were pitching and now they’re playing well but that’s not a surprise.”
It should be a great matchup between two solid SEC programs. LSU will be viewed as the favorite by most analysts, but Tennessee is playing fantastic baseball right now and they have just as good of a shot as anyone to run the table in Omaha.
Featured image via SCOTT CLAUSE/USA TODAY Network / USA TODAY NETWORK
