OMAHA, Neb. — With the Tigers low on arms, coach Paul Mainieri put fifth-year senior Russell Reynolds on the mound under the brightest lights in the first game of the College World Series finals against SEC foe Florida.
Reynolds had a promising start to his career at LSU, but saw it derailed by a shoulder injury his freshman season.
Reynolds matched his longest outing of the season with 3⅓ innings pitched. However, after recording the first out in the fourth inning, Reynolds walked three straight before being removed from the game for freshman lefty Nick Bush.
“If you would have told me before the game we would get three shutout innings from him to start the game, I would have been pleased,” said Mainieri. “I got a little greedy there and tried to get an extra inning out of him, and we still had a long way to go and not a lot of options coming out of the bullpen.”
Florida was able to get a sac fly and a ground rule double off of Bush to clear the bases before Bush struck out a batter to end the inning.
The three runs counted against Reynolds, who finished with three earned runs, two hits, three walks and two strikeouts on 63 pitches.
LSU had a chance to take back some runs in the bottom of the fourth inning after back-to-back singles from sophomore outfielder Antoine Duplantis and junior outfielder Greg Deichmann.
Then Florida sophomore pitcher Brady Singer went to work, and struck out the next three batters.
“My feelings are that we went up against who I believe to be maybe the best pitcher I’ve seen in the SEC for an opponent since I’ve been the coach at LSU,” Mainieri said.
Singer, who reminds Mainieri of former Tiger Aaron Nola, handled the LSU lineup through five innings, and struck out 10 batters before Duplantis hit a solo home run in the sixth inning.
“I was seeing him pretty well today,” Duplantis said. “I was just trying to lay off the breaking ball as much as I could, and I did a good job of that, and luckily I got ahead in the count that at-bat and I didn’t miss my pitch.”
LSU added another run in the inning after freshman outfielder Zach Watson was hit by a pitch and was driven by junior designated hitter Beau Jordan on a single to left field.
Florida would take back a run in the next inning after a leadoff double by freshman left fielder Austin Langworthy. Langworthy would score two at-bats later on a hard hit single that got past Bush.
Bush would eventually be replaced by senior reliever Hunter Newman, who recorded the final out of the inning. Bush pitched 3⅓ innings, giving one run on three hits, no walks and two strikeouts on 51 pitches.
Newman suppressed the Florida bats for another inning before Deichmann would leadoff the bottom of the eighth with a double. Deichmann scored on a single from freshman third baseman Josh Smith, who was called out trying to take second base. On further look, Smith should’ve been ruled safe by the umpire, but the play was not reviewable.
The Tigers would not threaten in the inning, and would go three up, three down in the bottom of the ninth.
“We’re not going to hang our heads tonight,” Mainieri said. “I thought our kids competed as hard as they could and they left it all out there on the field. We were just a hair short.”
Senior Jared Poché will take the mound for LSU on Tuesday in Game 2 of the SEC matchup.
