Guilbeau: It’s Cajuns at LSU with Omaha at stake
BATON ROUGE – Cajuns and Tigers living together for a weekend! This could be dangerous.
Or do you not remember the 2002 NCAA Regional in which LSU and UL Lafayette met three times, and there was a bat throwing incident and so much anger from both sides that the regular season series ended for several years?
Alex Box Stadium has hosted seven NCAA Super Regionals, a best-of-three series with the winner advancing to Omaha, Nebraska, to play in the College World Series. Alex Box Stadium has never hosted an All-Louisiana Super Regional … until now.
Whether you call the Cajuns UL or ULL or USL or SLI or Louisiana, they will be at LSU or Louisiana State or Louisiana A&M for two or three games.
No. 3 seed UL Lafayette, 44-19 and just 56 miles from Baton Rouge, will play No. 2 overall seed and No. 1 ranked LSU, 51-10, beginning Friday or Saturday in one of eight Super Regionals around the nation. The Cajuns beat Rice, 5-2, Monday afternoon to capture the NCAA Houston Regional shortly after LSU defeated North Carolina Wilmington, 2-0, to win the Baton Rouge Regional.
LSU athletic director Joe Alleva and baseball coach Paul Maineiri are lobbying for a Saturday start to the Super for rest purposes because they feel the Tigers were slighted by the NCAA, which made LSU play on Monday at noon instead of on Sunday night. Since the Cajuns also played on Monday, that could actually help LSU’s argument for a Saturday start.
Imagine that. LSU and UL Lafayette bonding together for the greater good of a Saturday start. The Legislature would likely roll over in its paperwork. What’s next? Mixed individual seating arrangements with a Cajun fan next to a Tiger fan next to a Cajun fan?
Perhaps a compromise by host LSU is in order to secure this apparently absolutely necessary Saturday start if the NCAA had a sinister sense of humor. If LSU agrees to call UL Louisiana “Louisiana” from here to eternity, LSU gets the Saturday-Monday Super Regional with Monday as the “if necessary” game. If LSU insists on calling the Cajuns ULL and/or Louisiana-LAFAYETTE, the Super Regional will be Friday through Sunday.
“LSU would forfeit before they would call us Louisiana,” Cajun Jack tweeted on that matter Monday.
The Cajuns’ quest to be called “Louisiana” is comical and ridiculous at times, but who can blame a school for trying to better itself or image through better name recognition? What is more comical and ridiculous is how incensed LSU fans, LSU employees and even some in the LSU media get about a much smaller school trying to call itself “Louisiana.” As if that’s going to hurt LSU. Reigning football national champion Ohio State has seemed unperturbed by Ohio University 75 miles away.
But enough of that for the rest of this week. In the end, names mean very little. This could be a classic Super Regional by any name.
Interestingly, the Cajuns are said to be not nearly as good as their team last year, which was ranked No. 1 during the regular season, beat LSU 4-1, and finished 58-10 and a win away from Omaha after losing a home Super Regional to Ole Miss, 5-2 and 10-4, following a 9-5 win in the opener. LSU, which was eliminated by Houston in the Box in the NCAA regional round last year, is fortunate that Cajun team is not headed to Baton Rouge for a Super Regional this year.
This LSU team is much better on offense than a year ago. And if Jared Poche (8-1, 3.05 ERA) continues to pitch as he did Monday with the way Alex Lange (11-0, 1.76 ERA) is on fire, Lange and Poche are about as good as Aaron Nola and Poche were a year ago. LSU is third in the nation in hitting at .320, but know that LSU pitching is also 11th in the nation in ERA at 2.88 and has the only sub 3.00 ERA in the SEC.
The Cajuns, though, will come to Baton Rouge with supreme confidence and a coach, Tony Robichaux, who loves the underdog role — particularly when the favorite is LSU. This is a team that beat Rice, 7-6, in the ninth to open the Houston Regional, then beat Houston, 2-1, Sunday with two in the ninth after not recording a hit through the first seven and two-thirds innings.
This is clearly not the Super Regional foe LSU wanted. A big state school never wants to play a smaller, upstart one with so much at stake. With Omaha on the line, Big State University does not want to deal with all the hate from Want To Be State U.
This is a dangerous Super Regional for LSU.