Live to play another day

Once again the LSU Tigers rallied in the 9th inning to pull off an improbable victory. This has been the M.O. for the past few weeks.

In the SEC tournament, they did it to South Carolina. In the Super Regionals, they snatched a victory from UC-Irvine. Now Rice has felt the taste of having a victory taken away from you in the final innings.

LSU could get nothing going against Rice. They were down 5-0 late in the game and finally got the game within three runs in the 9th. With one out, the Tigers got a little help from the baseball gods as the Rice shortstop booted a ball that was possibly a double-play (depending on who you ask, many believe Jarrod Mitchell would have beat the throw to first. Regardless, it still would have been two men on and two outs when Blake Dean came up).

With the bases loaded and only one out, Dean hit a laser shot to left field that went off the wall. There wasn't even a need for the Rice outfielder to throw the ball in, as Mitchell could have passed up the other LSU baserunners as he was running from first (good thing he didn't because that's an out). LSU pulled out another victory and LSU Coach Paul Mainieri was able to provide his wife with the victory birthday present she asked him for.

Now LSU gets a rematch with #2 seed North Carolina. The Tar Heels defeated LSU in their first game of the College World Series, so it will be interesting to see if LSU learned anything from that defeat.