As the ESPNU selection show broadcast played, LSU coach Paul Mainieri was a little nervous. 

Seven teams had been announced and not one of them were the Tigers from Baton Rouge, but his worries went away when LSU was announced as the No. 8 and last national seed.

“I was a little bit nervous,” Mainieri said. “Not terribly. In my mind I was mentally ready to handle whatever the decision was.”

LSU, Rice, Southeastern and Utah Valley are the top four seeds respectively in the Baton Rouge Regional. A month ago, most national pundits didn’t consider the LSU baseball team to be a regional host.

But now it’s the fifth straight season LSU was awarded a national seed, which is the longest streak in the country. In its team history, LSU is 7-1 in Super Regionals at Alex Box Stadium.

Back when LSU dropped its series against Ole Miss on April 30, Mainieri still kept his team’s focus toward earning a national seed.

“About 12 games left in the season Coach (Mainieri) was like, ‘we’re going to win our next 12 games,’” junior pitcher Jared Poche’ said. “Not that we didn’t believe, it just seemed out of the ordinary to say that…He said we were going to 12-0, we went 11-1 so he wasn’t too far off with that.”

The Tigers’ strong push toward the end of the season is one of the reasons LSU ended up it with a national seed. LSU won 14 of its last 16 games and beat the No. 1 team in the country four times.

“We knew we had the character,” said junior outfielder Jake Fraley. “It’s the kind of the team as we continue to step on the field more and more we’re going to have that experience…The biggest turning point was when we went into that last stretch there.”

The road back to Omaha for the Tigers will begin on Friday, as LSU and Rice will square off at 2 p.m.
“We still gotta win a regional to put that Super Regional to good use,” freshman right fielder Antoine Duplantis said.