OMAHA – The LSU baseball team received all the great defensive plays it needed. The Tigers (54-12) even grabbed an early 1-0 lead, giving the planned “Jack Wholestaff” pitching approach a needed cushion.
But those things didn’t mean much when the Tiger bats went mostly quiet after the third inning, and the multitude of LSU pitchers couldn’t shut down the Horned Frog (51-14) offense Thursday night at TD Ameritrade Park.
TCU broke a 3-3 tie with a three-run fifth inning, and Horned Frog senior right-handed reliever Trey Teakell retired all 13 LSU batters he faced in 4 ⅓ innings of work, aiding an 8-4 victory to eliminate the Tigers from the College World Series.
With the Tigers’ season ending and the lost of eight everyday starters, LSU coach Paul Mainieri was openly emotional following the defeat.
“This is always the opening statement you hate to make since it’s the last game of the year, and you haven’t really had a chance to digest everything and come to grips with all of your emotions,” Mainieri said. “Right now my feelings are just very, very sad for our players that gave so much and so much effort this year with the goal of winning a national championship. We’ve come a little bit short. In particular, you know, it’s going to be really difficult to say goodbye to a group of really wonderful kids that played their last game for LSU.”
The last game for so many key Tigers ultimately didn’t go as planned, but the start was exactly what they wanted.
Sophomore left fielder Jake Fraley worked an 11-pitch, one-out walk and then stole second, setting up an RBI single by senior catcher Kade Scivicque to put LSU on the board in the top of the first inning.
With senior reliever Zac Person on the mound to start the Wholestaff outing, the Tigers were able to retire TCU in the bottom of the first, working around a one-out single with a throwout by Scivicque and strikeout from Person.
But the Horned Frogs wouldn’t be denied in the bottom of the second. Person gave up back-to-back singles to start the inning and then consecutive walks to allow his first run. After striking out the following batter, Person was replaced by sophomore reliever Hunter Newman, who gave up a two-RBI single to the first batter he faced, which gave TCU a 3-1 lead.
“First inning, we were able to escape a jam,” Mainieri said. “I thought [Person] was doing okay, even though he wasn’t getting his breaking ball over the plate. Then, in the second inning, he just kept falling behind on the counts and never was able to effectively use his curveball. Quite frankly, that’s his big pitch, and it just never worked for him.”
The Tigers, though, were able to respond in the top of third, tying the game up on an RBI triple from Fraley and later scoring on a wild pitch. TCU starting pitcher Mitchell Traver was able to retire the final two batters of the frame and struck out LSU junior center fielder Andrew Stevenson to begin the fourth inning. But a one-out walk to Tiger first baseman Chris Chinea ended Traver’s night in favor of sophomore right-handed pitcher Trey Teakell.
From there, LSU couldn’t buy a hit.
The Tigers were 0-for-13 against Teakell, spanning the final two outs of the fourth inning through the first two outs of the eighth inning. Teakell only struck out one, but junior shortstop Alex Bregman said the Horned Frog hurler’s fastball was what gave LSU trouble.
“He threw a pretty downhill fastball, like 92-95 [miles per hour],” Bregman said. “You really had to get on top of it. We just missed a few of them, and then he threw like this cutter [or] slider thing that was pretty hard but not that hard compared to his fastball…He had good feel for his slider.”
With right-handed freshman reliever Jesse Stallings coming on in the top of the seventh, TCU was able to place runners on the corners after a walk, a single and fielder’s choice. Sophomore right-handed reliever Parker Bugg, who was the eighth and final LSU pitcher, replaced Stallings with just one out in the inning, but the Horned Frogs were able to push across two more runs via an RBI fielder’s choice and RBI single.
Although the Tigers grabbed a run in the top of the ninth inning on an RBI double by Stevenson, TCU junior right-handed reliever Preston Guillory fanned Tiger senior second baseman Jared Foster to end the game.
It was an obviously watery-eyed postgame press conference and LSU locker room, but players like Bregman, who Mainieri doesn’t “want to think about life without,” could only bring up positive thoughts about his time at LSU and the future of the program.
“We love playing for Coach Mainieri and the other coaches,” Bregman said. “The road to Omaha starts with the guys that are in that locker room that are coming back next year. It starts now. They’re going to work for that and try and fight their way back here. It’s a tough place to win games, and they’re going to try and scratch and claw and fight their way back and try and find ways to win here and just dream about winning a national championship.”

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Javier Fernández

LSU senior catcher Kade Scivicque (22) senior infielder Conner Hale (20) junior catcher Chris Chinea (26) and junior infielder Alex Bregman (8) take the field during the Tigers' 8-4 final defeat against TCU in the NCAA Men's College World Series on Thursday, June 18, 2015 at the TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.