College baseball’s national championship will be decided Saturday in a first round College World Series game between SEC rivals Arkansas and LSU.
That’s pure conjecture, of course, because the eight-team College World Series begins Friday and lasts at least 10 days, maybe 11.
Still, history makes it pretty clear that teams better win their series opener if they hope to end up with their name on the trophy.
Which makes Saturday night’s marquee game between the Razorbacks and Bayou Bengals a monumental clash. The winner will be the odds-on favorite to emerge as national champion.
It’s an unfortunate first round pairing for both Arkansas and LSU, as they’re the two highest seeds to reach the Series in Omaha, Neb.
They’re also the only SEC teams that made it to the CWS. The other six teams represent six other conferences.
A series of upsets has left only five of the national seeds still alive. National seeds were the 16 teams which hosted a first-round NCAA Regional.
The top contenders are:
No. 3 Arkansas
No. 6 LSU
No. 8 Oregon State
No. 13 Coastal Carolina
No. 15 UCLA
Louisville, Arizona and Murray State round out the field. Murray State is just the fourth team that was a Regional No. 4 seed — the lowest in a four-team mini-bracket — to reach the College World Series.
Arkansas was the highest seed to reach last weekend’s Super Regional round as No. 1 Vanderbilt and No. 2 Texas were both upset on their home fields in the opening week of the NCAA Tournament, which features four-team pods in a double-elimination affair.
How good is Arkansas? The Hogs swept both Vanderbilt and Texas, topping the Commodores in Nashville and the Longhorns during a festive first weekend of May at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The Hogs outscored Vandy 22-7 in three games March 28-30 and humiliated the hated Longhorns 28-9, winning the final two by five runs each.
How good is LSU? The Tigers took two of three from the Razorbacks at their old ballpark in Baton Rouge, but that series was on the heels of the Hogs’ emotional sweep of old rival and then-No. 1 Texas.
LSU nipped Arkansas 5-4 in 10 innings, then embarrassed the visitors with a seven-inning “mercy” rule win in seven innings, 13-3. Coach Dave Van Horn’s Hogs salvaged the third game, winning 7-4.
Now, LSU and Arkansas are set for a more important showdown at 6 p.m. Saturday on ESPN. It’s the highlight matchup of the four first round games, befitting the prime-time weekend TV slot.
It’ll surely offer a rematch of the two southpaw aces: Arkansas’ Zach Root and LSU’s Kade Anderson.
In the opener of their series at LSU, Root allowed five hits, no walks and two earned runs while striking out six in six innings. Tigers clean-up hitter Ethan Frey doubled in the second inning and homered in the fourth.
Anderson lasted 5.2 innings as the Hogs managed seven hits — including home runs by Kuhio Aloy and Cam Kozeal. Anderson walked one and whiffed 10.
Both the Hogs and Tigers have enough pitching depth and hitting prowess to win several games in the loser’s bracket and perhaps reach the best-of-three championship series against the winner of the other four-team backet.
But, since they’re in the same bracket, only one can advance to the final round. That makes Saturday’s showdown the biggest game of the year for both teams.
That’s because history says the loser of Saturday’s LSU-Arkansas game has little chance of celebrating on the season’s final day.
Since the CWS began in 1947, only 12 teams have lost their CWS opener and rebounded to win the championship.
One of those came in 1979 when Cal State Fullerton rallied to win five straight after dropping its opener. The Titans topped the Hogs 13-10 and 2-1 in the finale.
The most recent occurrence was in 2018, when the Oregon State Beavers lost their first game and won the next three to land a spot in the championship series against Arkansas. The Hogs won the first game, 4-1, then saw the series turn after a Cayden Grenier foul ball was dropped that would have ended the series, giving the Razorbacks the national championship instead.
Despite being down to his final strike, Grenier managed a single to tie the game and Trevor Lanarch hit a two-run homer to complete the comeback win. The Beavers blanked the Hogs in the following game to claim the championship.
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