END OF THE ROAD: LSU sweeps WVU in super regional
BATAN ROUGE, La. — West Virginia baseball's quest to kick down the Omaha, Neb. door will have to wait another year.
For the second straight season, the Mountaineers dropped both games of a road super regional and ended the season one round shy of their first College World Series in program history.
This one was a relentless onslaught at the hands of arguably the best team in the country, a 12-5 loss to LSU following Saturday's 16-9 defeat.
BOX SCORE
'We never focus on other teams and what they do,' West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins said. 'Couldn't be more proud of our guys.'
West Virginia (44-16) hung in for as long as it could, even bringing the tying run to the plate as late as the sixth inning on Sunday night. But LSU (48-15) just had too much offense, too many power arms and made far fewer mistakes as it secured its 20th CWS appearance in the last 39 years.
Just like in Game 1, a pair of big innings made the difference. LSU blew the game open early with five runs in the second inning, all after West Virginia starter Jack Kartsonas retired the first two batters on nine pitches. Three consecutive walks loaded the bases, and Steven Milam delivered a three-run double down the right field line. Milam came around to score on Jake Brown's RBI single and after Brown advanced on a wild pitch, a misplayed infield pop-up allowed him to trot home with the fifth run of the frame and sixth of the game.
After West Virginia put up four runs in the middle innings and knocked LSU starter Anthony Eyanson out, the visitors had legitimate traction for the only time all weekend. Sam White hit a solo homer, Ben Lumsden popped up with the unlikeliest of homers — just his second all season — to make it 6-3 and White delivered an RBI single in his next at-bat.
'I have great hitters in front of me and great hitters behind me,' White said. 'My job is just to pass it to the next guy.'
Just in time for another costly dropped pop-up.
The second aerial miscue of the night was the first of three errors in a nightmare seventh inning, allowing LSU to score six times and put the game out of reach, finally delivering the knockout punch after a heroic Chase Meyer relief performance kept the Mountaineers in the game. Chris Stanfield's two-run insurance created initial separation, Milam added another RBI single and Jake Brown belted a two-run home run off the batter's eye to complete the inning.
Tally it up for the series and you get galling numbers. West Virginia pitchers issued 17 walks, hit eight batters and committed four errors, far too much help for an LSU team with more than enough talent to win without the lifelines.
'When you give great teams and great offenses additional opportunities or free passes, they answer,' Sabins said. 'We had more walks than what a championship team can do. The walks and hit-by-pitches allowed for baserunners to get on. Our pitchers were consistently in stressful situations.'
Stack it up in total for year one of the Sabins era, and the total body of work was unquestionably positive. It was arguably the greatest season in West Virginia baseball history, even building on from last year's success of winning a regional for the first time ever.
'We broke the all-time win record at WVU,' Sabins said. 'We won the first outright Big 12 title in football, basketball or baseball at our university, and this program has never been in back-to-back super regionals. Those were big milestones, and that was something that we're proud of.'
But at this moment, the pain was still there. West Virginia just had no answers across two games. Not for the heat, the intimidating away environment and definitely not for an LSU team which showed why it spent a chunk of the season ranked No. 1 nationally.
It is on to reflection, transfer portal work and the long countdown to February 2026, as the Mountaineers will begin the Omaha chase again.
'I don't get sad about baseball results,' Sabins said. 'I get sad about the group of people that you work with for a year straight to try to build something special — which this group did — won't ever get to be together again. There is some sort of finality with that final out, that you're not going to get to be with that same group of kids.'
If West Virginia ever crosses over those pearly gates of Omaha into college baseball heaven, teams like this one will be responsible for laying the foundation.
Not this year, though.
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