NEW ORLEANS — With just 21,343 in attendance at Tuesday’s LSU-Tulane matchup, ticket buyers failed to break the previous attendance mark set in March.
A crowd of 40,106 in attendance piled into San Diego’s PETCO Park to see San Diego State defeat the University of Houston 4-0 on March 11, breaking the record set in the Superdome two years ago in the LSU-Tulane game.
More than 27,000 fans witnessed LSU defeat the Green Wave 9-5 in the April 2002 matchup, shattering the previous record set between TCU and Texas at the Ballpark in Arlington in the 1996 contest.
Third baseman Clay Harris said not breaking the record is not something that bothers him.
“It’s a fun event no matter what,” Harris said. “It’s more than what we’re used to playing in front of.”
Harris added he always enjoys facing off with Tulane in the Superdome.
“It’s fun,” Harris said. “Coming out here and playing, it’s just a game we look forward to every year.”
Reliever Jordan Faircloth, who made an appearance in the eighth inning, said he did not think they would break the record.
“You never want to come out and say who’s going to break the record,” Faircloth said. “We kind of knew we weren’t going to get 40,000.”
Faircloth added that the game was in an Omaha-type atmosphere.
“Twenty thousand, you don’t play in front of a crowd like that unless you’re [in the Superdome] or in Omaha,” Faircloth said. “There’s no complaints from me.”
Despite not breaking the PETCO record, LSU and Tulane fans did manage to break last year’s mark set when 18,319 fans attended the LSU-Tulane game in the Superdome.
The game also marks the 12th-consecutive game in the New Orleans area in which more than 10,000 fans were in attendance.
In addition, this season serves as the third-straight year in which LSU and Tulane have met in the Superdome. The teams have also met each year since 1998 at Zephyr Field in Metairie, including the 2001 Super Regionals.
With an average of 11,756 at each Super Regional game, fans managed to surpass the attendance total of six of the seven other Super Regional sites. The three games also marked the most fans ever to watch a Super Regional matchup.
And despite the number of times LSU and Tulane have played, Harris added the LSU faithful always manage to outlast the Green Wave fans.
“[The LSU] fans are always loud,” Harris said. “There were probably more [LSU fans] here than Tulane fans, and it’s [Tulane’s] home game.”