NCAA Super Regional Notebook: LSU not deterred by loss, will likely start Poche’

After Coastal Carolina pulled off the most significant win in program history Saturday night, defeating Louisiana State 11-8 to take a one-game lead in the teams’ best-of-three NCAA super regional series, neither coach was looking much further ahead.

Weary from a game that lasted nearly four and a half hours and extended past midnight locally, Coastal Carolina coach Gary Gilmore said he had to meet with his staff in determining a pitcher for Sunday while LSU’s Paul Mainieri said he wanted to wait and see how junior left-hander Jared Poche’ feels before the game.

It would be a surprise, though, if the pitching matchup Sunday night wasn’t junior righty Alex Cunningham (9-3, 3.66 ERA) vs. Poche’ (9-4, 3.26) with the Chanticleers now just one win away from the College World Series.

“We’ll see. We’ll talk about it when we get back to the hotel and figure out exactly where we’re at,” Gilmore said.

Cunningham has been terrific in the postseason so far, allowing two runs in six innings in his Big South tournament start before throwing 5 1/3 scoreless frames in an NCAA regionals win over NC State.

Over his last five starts, he’s allowed a total of just six earned runs in 30 1/3 innings with a sterling 30-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Poche’, meanwhile, has even better numbers than Saturday starter Alex Lange (albeit without the same strikeout prowess). He allowed one run and racked up eight strikeouts with no walks in six innings against Utah Valley in the Tigers’ NCAA regional opener. He then came out of the bullpen to throw six scoreless innings in the regional final with Rice, allowing only one hit and striking out six.

“We’ll see how Jared feels. If Poche’ feels good, it will be him, but we’ll wait to see how he feels [Sunday] when he’s playing catch,” Mainieri said.

Mainieri reiterated that his team has been in this position before over the course of the season, losing the first game of a big three-game series – just not with this much at stake.

“We’re used to playing tough three-game series in the SEC every weekend, and sometimes you win the opening game and sometimes you don’t,” he said. “But you have to treat every game individually, and in this particular case obviously winning the series allows you to continue your season. ...

“Our backs are against the wall – there’s no hiding that fact, we know that. But we’re giving the ball to a kid that we have a lot of confidence in, and I know our players are going to be tough-minded. They’re going to go to sleep tonight, wake up and know that we’ve got a tough ballgame and they’re going to be ready to play.”

Lancaster continues his tear

In going 4-for-4 with two doubles, two runs scored an an RBI on Saturday night, sophomore second baseman Seth Lancaster continued to blister the baseball as he has for five weeks now.

Since May 6, Lancaster is batting a team-best .444 (28-for-63) with18 runs scored, 19 RBIs, eight doubles and four home runs.

“Just coming to the park every day with this group of guys makes it really easy to go to work and do what we love and that’s play ball,” he said Saturday night. “Just an opportunity to come out in this stadium in front of these fans, it’s a true blessing and I’m just blessed to be able to have a little success and help these guys out.”

He was also directly involved in a wild ending to the game as he dropped a routine pop up in the infield from pinch-hitter Jordan Romero as a run scored before picking up the ball and tossing to shortstop Michael Paez at the bag to tag Romero for the final out.

“Honestly I have no idea what was going on,” he said of that play. “I thought I was camped [under it], wasn’t camped, dropped it and I heard CO (Connor Owings) yell two so I looked up and got him out. It was probably the weirdest ending to a ballgame I’ve ever been involved in in my career. But we got the win, that’s all that matters.”

Rally monkey over Rally possum

It was bound to come up again ...

Prior to the bottom of the fifth inning, when Gilmore did his in-game interview for the television broadcast, reliever Bobby Holmes brought Rafiki the rally monkey out and held him behind the coach.

Sure enough, the Chants would turn the tide of the game in that inning as Holmes came out of the bullpen and stranded the bases loaded while keeping LSU’s lead at 4-2.

And then Coastal Carolina scored four runs in the top of the sixth and never trailed again.

So naturally after the game, Gilmore was asked about the powers of Rafiki, a stuffed toy monkey the players bought at a truck stop after being swept in a three-game series at Georgia Tech. They have since won 17 of 19 games since Rafiki joined the team.

“We’re trying to counteract your all’s Rally Possum so we’ve got to have our own little thing,” Gilmore said with a laugh. “The kids have brought that along, and it’s kind of caught on with our whole ballclub and we believe in it just like you guys do. We’re just excited to be where we’re at right now, to be honest with you. We’ll see how [Sunday] and the next day go.”

Ballgirl Gate

In the top of the fifth inning Saturday, Lancaster led off with a double down the right field line that the LSU ball girl fielded and tossed into the stands.

Lancaster kept running before stopping at third, and the umpires would go to video review before ultimately returning him to second base. Meanwhile, the ball girl had put herself in the spotlight with even the fan who received the ball from her being interviewed by local media during the game.

“I watched it. I was just glad I got a bat on it, it was a pretty good pitch, but it landed right on the line. I came around second, I was looking at Gilley and he didn’t know what to do – he wasn’t wheeling me or stopping me so I just kept running and it worked out,” Lancaster said.

After being sent back to second, Lancaster soon return to third on a wild pitch and scored on a Billy Cooke groundout.

Thoughts on The Box

The announced paid attendance Saturday night at LSU’s Alex Box Stadium was 11,516, and Gilmore spoke his appreciation for the environment his team experienced.

“I’ve been in a lot of ballparks in college baseball, and the atmosphere here is as good as anywhere I’ve ever been,” he said. “As noisy and loud as it was, I didn’t hear one person say anything inappropriate. I wish every ballpark was like this. It was an incredible experience. Their fans were unbelievable. Those guys that play for LSU are so blessed to have this type of atmosphere to play in every day and it was a privilege to come here and play. I’m glad our guys were able to block out the noise.

“We’ve never played in front of that in my career here at Coastal – that type of deafening cheering they were doing for their team when things are going well. It’s a unique atmosphere.”

Stat updates

In giving up three runs (two earned) in the ninth inning – his third inning of work – senior closer Mike Morrison saw his miniscule ERA rise from 0.79 to 1.06.

That still ranks as the best single-season mark in the Chants’ Division I era, though.

Meanwhile, junior starter Andrew Beckwith saw his ERA rise from 1.82 to 2.12 after giving up four runs in 4 1/3 innings. That’s still top-10 on the single-season list in the program’s Division I era.

Meanwhile, with his 19th home run Saturday, senior third baseman Zach Remillard is now tied for fifth on the program’s single-season list with future Major Leaguers Kirt Manwaring and Mickey Brantley.

He is three behind John Rigos’ school record of 22 homers, set in 1983.

“I was trying to pitch with a six-run lead and I’ve got to be better than that, but it was a big win for our program,” Morrison said.

This story was originally published June 12, 2016 at 2:46 PM with the headline "NCAA Super Regional Notebook: LSU not deterred by loss, will likely start Poche’."