The NCAA Baseball Tournament is the final National Championship of the school year and the Super Regionals, a Sweet Sixteen Best-of-Three Series, began with two instant classics to begin an exciting weekend. The first consisted of the LSU Tigers and Stony Brook Seawolves in Game 1 of the Baton Rouge Super Regional. Although the #7 Tigers were the heavy favorites heading into the weekend series, the Seawolves used Sal Intagliata's two-run home run in the second inning to take the early lead. The Seawolves continued to steamroll into the seventh inning with a dominant Brandon McNitt on the mound. He allowed only two hits through the first six innings, but found some trouble in the seventh. The highly favored Tigers finally found a spark in SEC Player of the Year Raph Rhymes. Rymes used his NCAA-best batting average to reach base and score the team's first run off a Ty Ross groundout in the bottom of the seventh. After being down two runs for most of the ballgame, the Tigers were now within reach of tying the Seawolves.
After a 1-2-3 inning from LSU's Chris Cotton in the top of the eighth, the LSU batters looked to build on the team's momentum heading to the bottom half of the inning. The team had runners on first and second with no outs, but Stony Brook did not allow a run in the inning. Within two at-bats, Tyler Moore struck out, Jared Foster was caught stealing third, and Austin Nola fouled out. Although LSU's first comeback attempt did not succeed, their second opportunity was highly successful in the ninth. The first batter of the inning, JaCoby Jones, homered to left to tie up the game at two. After a low-scoring affair through the game's first nine innings, Jones' home run would change the course of the game. In a matter of three innings, the Tigers and Seawolves combined for five runs (four home runs) before an extended rain delay postponed the game (The teams are tied at four heading to the top of the twelfth inning). The back-and-forth battle is set to resume tomorrow morning at 10:05 Central Time at Alex Box Stadium.
The second game of the weekend featured the Arizona Wildcats and St. John's Red Storm in the Tempe Super Regional. The #14 Wildcats came in as the favorites for their Super Regional Series, but experienced a slow start to Game 1 like the Tigers did. Both Arizona and St. John's fought to get anything going, but ultimately St. John's powered through with a five-run, seven-hit fourth inning to take the early lead. St. John's was a one-shot wonder in the game. Between the next three innings, Arizona had erased their 5-run deficit and had tied up the ballgame in the bottom of the sixth. After a tough start, Wildcat pitcher Kurt Heyer regrouped and finished with nine-and-a-third innings of work on the day.
Both teams struggled to score in the following innings, so the game became the day's second extra-inning affair. The weather was perfect in Tempe, so the Wildcats and Red Storm were expected to finish their game, unlike the Tigers and Seawolves. The Red Storm came to bat in the top of the tenth and an RBI single from Sean O'Hare gave the team their first run since the fourth inning. St. John's held their second lead of the ballgame, but it would not last. The Wildcats were behind the entire game, but broke through with two runs on three hits in the home half of the tenth to take Game 1 of their Super Regional. The two Super Regionals that began the weekend could not have been better, even if one had no conclusion.
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