Four young players came to Baton Rouge more than two years ago when a new age of LSU baseball was just beginning.They were members of Paul Mainieri’s first freshman class as the Tigers’ coach, and all four of them have seen significant playing time since their first season.And after winning the College World Series on Wednesday, Blake Dean, Jared Mitchell, Sean Ochinko and Ryan Schimpf — four key juniors that helped put LSU back on the national map — have possibly played together in an LSU uniform for the last time.Mainieri said while he’s unsure whether any of the four will return, they will always be part of LSU baseball — even if their stay is done.”It’s kind of an end of a little bit of a mini era there with them leaving,” Mainieri said. “But their legacy is firmly established.”The four juniors, all starters on LSU’s championship team, were selected in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on June 9-11. They were all drafted within the first 11 rounds of the 50-round draft after building impressive resumes during their Tiger tenures.They have combined for 122 home runs, 535 RBI and a .313 career batting average while starting 675 of 719 games in which they played.Dean was a 2008 All-American and a 2009 First Team All-Southeastern Conference member, and he and Ochinko made the 2007 SEC All-Freshmen team. Schimpf was a Second-Team All-SEC selection in 2009, and Mitchell was the No. 23 overall pick in this year’s MLB draft — the first Tiger taken in the first round since Aaron Hill in 2003.But team success was limited for LSU in the quartet’s freshman season.The Tigers went 29-26-1 in 2007, missing both the SEC and NCAA tournaments. Dean was the leading hitter on that team with a .316 batting average, 46 RBI and seven home runs.Mainieri gave the roster a face lift that offseason — 15 players who still had collegiate eligibility remaining didn’t return to the team.The 2007 freshman class was whittled down from 12 players to seven. But Dean, Mitchell, Ochinko and Schimpf all made the cut.”It’s been a roller coaster,” Mitchell said. “Coach Mainieri implemented this program, got the right guys to come in here, character guys that were going to work hard. It shows the kind of guys, the character we have here, from going where we were two years ago to where we are now.”That infamous season ended May 19, 2007 — 772 days ago for those who are counting.But Schimpf still remembers it.”It’s fun to see how much we’ve progressed. It really seems like yesterday that we were freshmen playing at the old Box, going through a pretty rough season,” Schimpf said. “It was just good to see how we transformed into a great team.”And what changed the Tigers’ fortunes? Mainieri redirecting the players’ attitudes, according to Schimpf.”It was just the character of the team. He kind of had to change us attitude-wise and just had to make us a little more dedicated,” Schimpf said.Mainieri said while his predecessor, Smoke Laval, recruited those four players to LSU, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t “love them to death.””I committed myself to them as freshmen. And I bit the bullet, and I knew it was going to create some hard times,” Mainieri said. “Because I showed such faith in them, they showed great loyalty to me. I knew we could fight through those tough times … I knew they were tough kids, and I knew I had a little bit of toughness too and that eventually this team was going to be going in the right way.”The group got through the tough times, as Mainieri predicted. Their sophomore campaign brought much more success, with a 49-win season and LSU’s first trip to Omaha since 2004.And then came the national championship junior season.”He’s done everything and more for this team, from the coaching and the X’s and O’s part of it, to putting together a great core group of guys, to instilling the right frame of mind on and off the field,” Mitchell said of Mainieri.Mainieri said he’s not positive what any four players will decide regarding their futures, but he has a hunch he’ll see Dean back in an LSU uniform next season. Dean was drafted in the 10th round by the Minnesota Twins.”Maybe Dean will be back. You know, we’ll see,” Mainieri said. “It would be good for him to be honest with you. He would be to the 2010 team what Louis Coleman was to the 2009 team.”But even if all four leave, will any of them stop talking to one another other once they start playing professionally?Not a chance.”All of them are in my phone. All of them will always stay in my phone, and we’re always going to keep in contact,” Mitchell said. “It’s just been a fun ride. They’re going to be some of my closest friends for life.”—Contact Robert Stewart at [email protected]