 "Photo: Paul Chouy/The Daily Texan")
OMAHA, Neb. — Texas rode a crazy wave into the College World Series championship.
On Monday, in the first game of a best-of-three series against Louisiana State, the string of crazy games continued, but the outcome reversed, as the Longhorns finally became the victims of a late-inning comeback.
For LSU center fielder Mikie Mahtook, whose 11th-inning single off of Brandon Workman drove in the winning run, the ending of LSU’s 7-6 win was unexpected relief.
“He tried to bury a curveball, that I have been swinging at all game, but I took it. He left one up and I took it up the middle,” Mahtook said.
Few expected Mahtook to be the hero. Not after his horrible start — in his first three at-bats he was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. He was hapless, he was lost, he was beat. After chasing down a fly ball in center field, he fell to the ground, his legs cramping in the surprising Omaha heat. To make things worse, in his next at-bat, he grounded into an inning-ending double play, killing a chance at a Tiger rally in the eighth.
“That was pretty frustrating, three terrible at-bats, chasing balls in the dirt,” Mahtook said. “After the double play, Jared Mitchell told me, ‘You are going to have a big at-bat and come through, keep your head up don’t get frustrated.’”
He kept his head up and after an IV helped him fight off the cramps, his big hit in the 11th finally ended Texas’ magical run.
But for eight innings, it looked like the Longhorns’ magic would continue. After LSU took an early 1-0 lead on a Ryan Schimpf homer, scoring in the first inning as it had in all four of its CWS games, Texas responded with its own long ball — or rather, five of them. The five solo homeruns helped blast Texas to a 6-4 lead heading into the ninth.
It was the first time LSU had trailed in the College World Series for more than half an inning. The Tigers, who have now won 14 straight, were tested for the first time on Monday night.
The teams reversed roles in game one. It was Texas practicing the Tigers’ famous brand of gorilla ball, living by the long shot and only scoring a single run by means other than a homer. And it was LSU making the ninth-inning comeback and capturing the game in magical fashion.
When LSU starter Louis Coleman left, so did Texas’ offense. While the Longhorns bombed Coleman, relievers Chad Jones, Paul Bertuccini and Matty Ott shut down Texas, combining for five innings of no-hit baseball.
“Our bullpen has been maligned this year,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “It was great to see the rest of the team pick up Coleman. I thought he was pitching OK, but man, the ball was flying out of the ballpark.”
With two on and two outs in the ninth, LSU second baseman LeMahieu — who had hit a solo home run off of Austin Wood earlier — ripped a game-tying double down the left-field line.
“I wasn’t going to look for a certain pitch, his change-up was his best pitch, that is what I got,” LeMahieu said.
Texas, used to making the late-inning comeback, could never respond.
“We’ve played with a spirit of a champion for a long time now, we don’t have to give it up because we’ve lost a most difficult game,” Garrido said. “If you take this game into tomorrow’s game, you are a loser before the game starts. They put everything on the line, our team did and their team did, and they ended up being the winner.”
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