59-0! NAIA champion LSU Shreveport is the first college baseball team on record to go unbeaten
LSU Shreveport became the first college baseball team on record to go unbeaten, finishing 59-0 when it won the NAIA championship in Lewiston, Idaho.
The Pilots' perfect season ended with a 13-7 victory over Southeastern (Florida) on Friday night and gave the 10,000-student school in northwest Louisiana its first national title in any sport.
For 25 years LSU Shreveport has been one of the top programs in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which governs sports at 241 mostly small colleges across the country.
The Pilots have appeared in the NAIA national tournament every year since 2005 and the NAIA World Series in 2021, 2022 and 2025. They're 270-49 in six seasons under coach Brad Neffendorf, including 142-13 in Red River Athletic Conference play.
LSU Shreveport played only four games decided by one run this season, ranked second in the NAIA with 11.3 runs per game and third with a .361 batting average. The Pilots' 2.38 ERA was more than a run better than the next-closest team, and they led the nation with a .982 fielding percentage.
Josh Gibson, at .436, was one of three players on the team to bat better than .400, and Isaac Rohde struck out an NAIA-leading 146 and had a 2.09 ERA while going 16-0.
The Pilots broke the NAIA-record winning percentage of .935, set when Mount Vernon Nazarene (Ohio) went 43-3 in 1996.
The NCAA top single-season winning percentages are .914 by Arizona State (64-6 in 1972) in Division I, .939 by Savannah State of Georgia (46-3 in 2000) in Division II and .978 by Trinity of Connecticut (45-1 in 2008) in Division III.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
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