Freshman center fielder Leon Landry said he will be “ready for Omaha” and no longer has vision problems after his injury Monday in the LSU baseball team’s 21-7 win against UC Irvine. “I’ve been icing it every day, and it’s just getting better and better every day,” Landry said. Landry received three stitches under his right eye in the training room after leaving the game. He was taken out of Monday’s super regional final after crashing into the left-field wall while diving for a fly ball. He said the ball bounced off the fence, then hit him in the eye. “After a couple minutes, I stared feeling a little pain,” Landry said. “I just had massive headaches. They gave me some medicine, and that knocked it out.” Landry said he remembers everything that happened on the play and walking to the dugout after. “I thought I had it,” Landry said. “I had a beat on it, and I think I timed the jump pretty well. I just missed it by an inch or two.” He was replaced in center field by sophomore left fielder Jared Mitchell. Freshman outfielder Johnny Dishon replaced Mitchell in left. Landry had two spectacular diving catches in the first two games of the Super Regional. Both plays made No. 1 on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays.
GILLESPIE IMPRESSED WITH THE BOX UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie has been to many other national powers’ ballparks. The Anteaters played Arizona State, USC and Cal State Fullerton this season, all of which have won College World Series titles. But Gillespie said none are louder than Alex Box Stadium. “[The players] have been to the other ‘Taj Mahals’ of college baseball, and I have too,” Gillespie said. “There’s lots of places where there’s great baseball played, great fan support and they get behind their teams. Nothing like this.” This past weekend was not Gillespie’s first trip to Alex Box. He was USC’s head coach when the Trojans traveled to Baton Rouge in 1990 and 1994. Gillespie called the 70-year-old stadium a “special” and “unique” place. “[It] is in first place, and everything else is just second,” Gillespie said. “I don’t think you can prepare anybody for this until they get here.” Gillespie said LSU did a “marvelous job” hosting an NCAA Super Regional this year. “To organize a [super] regional at this particular place with this kind of crowd and all the logistics that go with preparing this … I think these folks deserve a lot of credit.”
POWER SURGE LSU has hit 97 home runs this season – more than double the number the Tigers hit in 2007. That number is LSU’s highest total since the team belted 98 in 2001 – Skip Bertman’s final season as head coach. “Our team is just swinging with the most confidence I’ve ever seen,” said junior first baseman Matt Clark. “We’ve been getting some pitches to hit lately, and we’ve just been putting the bat on the ball and getting them out of the ballpark.” Clark leads LSU with 26 home runs, which ties him for the national lead with Georgia shortstop Gordon Beckham and Florida State catcher Buster Posey. Both Georgia and Florida State are in this year’s College World Series. “We’ll see how it all shapes out in Omaha and who’s going to finish with the most,” Clark said.
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