While the spring semester was ending and campus began to quiet as students headed home, LSU’s baseball team was beginning to make noise and send other teams packing en route to winning a sixth national championship.The national title was the first for LSU’s squad since 2000 and the first for LSU coach Paul Mainieri, which ties him for the most in the Mainieri family with his father, Demie Mainieri, a legendary junior college coach who won a national championship in 1964.”I told my dad that all I was thinking about during that ninth inning was him and my mom,” Mainieri said after the championship victory. “The Mainieri family has been without a national championship for 45 years, and it was about time to win one.”The Tigers compiled a 41-15 record in the regular season and entered the Southeastern Conference tournament as the regular season co-champions with Ole Miss and the winners of 13 of their final 16 regular season games.In the super regional, LSU defeated national powerhouse Rice, 12-9 and 5-3, backed by the outstanding pitching performances by LSU sophomore Anthony Ranaudo and senior Louis Coleman. The one-two punch for LSU provided 15 2/3 innings pitched while giving up eight runs (four earned) on 14 hits and striking out 14. Neither starter gave up a walk.”It always begins with your pitching and defense,” Mainieri said after the game. “I know Skip Bertman won championships here with gorilla ball, but if you go back and look at his teams, I guarantee you he had great pitchers. You can’t win in this sport without pitching.”Unlike the 2008 team, the Tigers were determined to do more than just get to Rosenblatt Stadium.They did just that, winning five of six in Omaha — including taking two of three from No. 1 national seed Texas in the championship series — to win the national crown.”We’ve been so consistent all year,” said LSU junior catcher Micah Gibbs shortly after the victory. “We knew that we would be able to come back [from the loss], and that’s exactly what we did today.”It was the second time LSU won the Southeastern Conference regular season title, the SEC Tournament title and the national title in the same year. The only other LSU team to do so was the 1993 squad. The Tigers also became 6-0 in winner-take-all National Championship games.SUMMER BALLAfter the national championship run, 15 Tigers were dispersed across the country from Alaska to Massachusetts for summer ball.It was a widely successful summer for those Tigers.Five Tigers played in the Cape Cod League, the most prominent of the summer leagues: Gibbs, sophomore pitcher Austin Ross and freshman infielder Tyler Hanover were on the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, while sophomore pitcher Daniel Bradshaw and sophomore outfielder Leon Landry were on the Harwich Mariners.Numerous other Tigers made all-star teams in their respective leagues. Freshman shortstop Austin Nola, who played for the Dansville Dans, hit for his first career cycle on Aug. 5 in an 11-6 victory.”I’ve never hit one before,” Nola said in a news release. “I was just expecting to come to the game to play ball, have a few good at bats and hit the ball hard. The hits fell today.”INCOMING TIGERSIt wasn’t quite as successful of a signing deadline for the Tigers on Aug. 17 by midnight, as three of the seven possible incoming Tigers signed professional contracts.The signing of Slade Heathcott and Zack Von Rosenberg, two early draft picks, happened well before the signing date. But Brody Colvin, who was on campus at freshman orientation on signing deadline, got an offer early in the morning the day of the deadline from the Philadelphia Phillies and departed campus.That late signing is one of the reasons Mainieri has been pushing for the past few years to have MLB move up the signing deadline to July 15.”It’s so frustrating to spend two years recruiting a player and then lose him in the 11th hour,” Mainieri said.However, Mainieri is still excited about the 34 players on his roster, 27 of whom are on scholarship, the NCAA maximum. He is still allowed to add one more player to his 35 man roster.”Believe me, the sky is not falling in,” Mainieri said. “We are going to play with the kids who really want to play at LSU … I believe we will win and be successful with the team we have.”TRACK AND FIELDThe track and field teams finished their seasons this summer with a fifth and sixth place nationally for the Tigers and Lady Tigers, respectively.But many former track and field athletes made a splash competing for their countries.Former Tiger Richard Thompson finished fifth in what was the fastest ever 100-meter dash at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Berlin on Aug. 16.Thompson clocked a seasonal-best 9.93 seconds for Trinidad and Tobago in the event to finish behind Jamaica’s Usain Bolt’s world record 9.58 seconds.That finish comes after a car accident at the beginning of the year that set the sprinter back 10 weeks of training.”Richard has really started to show a tremendous amount of improvement over the last month or so as we have prepared for the World Championships, and that was certainly evident in his performance today,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver in a news release.————Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]