LSU washes away UCLA 9-5, Tigers a win away from Championship Series

(College Baseball Central photo by Reggie Wortman)

By Andrew Riedell

What a crazy 14 or so hours it has been in Omaha, as we had our first weather delay of the 2025 Men's College World Series. LSU and UCLA kicked off their game Monday night but finished on Tuesday.

Rain delays and next-day conclusions are nothing new to the Tigers, who have had a handful of games finish in the wee-hour neighborhood of 1 am this season. In a matchup of two blue-blood former national champions in the college baseball realm, UCLA decided to go with Landon Stump, and LSU started Anthony Eyanson, who ironically grew up a UCLA fan in California.

The UCLA bats got off to a hot start against Eyanson, tallying three early runs off him for a first inning lead, thanks to a Roman Martin RBI double, AJ Salgado RBI single, and a Payton Brennan RBI groundout.

But, LSU did not take long to answer and get their offense rolling. Jake Brown got it going with an RBI single to cut the deficit to two, before Jared Jones stepped up to the plate. He was coming off an 0-5 (all strikeouts) performance against Arkansas on Saturday and had stayed behind with Coach Jay Johnson after Sunday practice and did some extra work.

With the wind blowing in, Jones sent a fastball 110 MPH off the bat over the right centerfield wall to give LSU a 4-3 lead, and from there, they did not look back. After the rough first inning, Eyanson settled in for the second and third innings, not allowing a run.

In addition, the Tigers chased Stump in the third inning, after he walked the first two batters and forced a pitching change from UCLA head coach John Savage. Luis Hernandez welcomed the new Bruins pitcher with a RBI single, making it 5-3 in favor of the Tigers.

A rain delay descended after that inning, prompting all sorts of rumors and speculation on when, and how late, the game could resume. An announcement eventually came that the game would start back the following morning at 10:03 am. Predictably, that was then met with much chagrin and an outpouring of complaints and second guessing from media and fans alike.

When the game resumed Tuesday morning, LSU decided to go to Casan Evans right out of the gate. He has been stretched out in recent weeks but is also still used as a closer, such as last Saturday vs Arkansas.

Evans gave LSU the much-needed length that permitted saving many bullpen arms for the next few games. The freshman Evans went 4 1/3 out of the bullpen, striking out five Bruins and shutting down their lineup right out of the resumption.

Evans did leave after getting into some trouble after a hit and a hit batter in the 8th inning. At that point, LSU turned to Cooper Williams and Chase Shores to close it out with just two more runs from UCLA. Meanwhile, LSU also benefited from some late insurance runs for the final four-run margin, thanks to Steven Milam and Jake Brown, both of whom had stellar days driving in runs with multi-hit games.

UCLA moves into the Losers' Bracket and unenviably must play again tonight against Arkansas. While it is an elimination game for both, the Razorbacks enjoyed a complete game no-hitter pitched on Monday and would appear to have an advantage in that area, after UCLA and used eight pitchers in the resumption of today's game.

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