Tigers to stick with strengths vs. UCI

By now, the point has been clearly pushed across.

In case you haven’t heard, the red-hot LSU baseball team will not adapt its style simply because UC Irvine figures to play at a different tempo and with a different approach.

Tigers coach Paul Mainieri beat on the same drum again Wednesday, reiterating what he has said all week.

“Just because they play small ball doesn’t mean we’re going to combat that by playing small ball ourselves,” Mainieri said.

Maybe not. Read the rest of this entry »

LSU 11, Southern Miss 4

From the middle of the diamond at a raucous Alex Box Stadium, Michael Hollander knew what was coming Sunday night against Southern Miss in the championship game of an NCAA regional tournament.

Heck, by that point of the game and at this point of LSU’s magical baseball season, everybody had a pretty good hunch what was looming with red-hot Blake Dean at the plate and the bases full of Tigers. Read the rest of this entry »

New Orleans 18, Texas Southern 5

Johnny Giavotella was 3-for-3 with a home run and four runs scored, helping New Orleans eliminate Texas Southern from the NCAA tournament with an 18-5 victory Saturday in the Baton Rouge regional.

New Orleans (43-20) blew the game open in the bottom of the fifth, sending 11 batters to the plate and scoring six runs to take a 13-2 lead. Read the rest of this entry »

Trey Sutton, Drew Carson and Michael Ewing each homered in a five-run seventh inning to lift Southern Miss to a 13-6 NCAA opening-game victory over New Orleans Friday night at Alex Box Stadium.

USM (41-20) won its opening game in the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year, downing Troy 14-1 a year ago in the Oxford Regional. The Golden Eagles advance in the winner’s bracket to face No. 7 national seed LSU in a 6 p.m. Saturday contest. Read the rest of this entry »

A walk, a bunt attempt, a double-steal and a home run. That’s just the bottom of the first, when LSU jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first game of the Baton Rouge Regional. The homestanding Tigers broke loose again in the fifth and sixth innings, and Texas Southern got on the board in the top of the sixth with an Earnest Rhone home run. Alex Box was filled with 6,536 fans as LSU advanced in the winner’s bracket, where it will face the winner of the Southern Miss-New Orleans matchup Saturday. The SWAC Tournament champions will face the loser of that game in an elimination contest.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LSU

For the third consecutive season, Rice has won the regular season Conference USA Championship, becoming the first school in league history to accomplish that feat. It marks the 13th consecutive regular season title for the Owls, dating back to the Southwest Conference.

Rice earned the regular season championship by sweeping a three-game series from cross-town rival Houston over the weekend at Reckling Park. The wins assured the Owls of winning the Silver Glove Trophy for the eighth straight year by winning four-of-five head-to-head matchups with the Cougars. Read the rest of this entry »

You thought 20 years was good?

How does 25 sound?

Officials spearheading Omaha’s ballpark effort announced that the College World Series will stay in Omaha for the next quarter of a century. That comes after last week’s news that the tournament will be here “at least 20 years,” starting in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

With only two conference weekends remaining, teams continue to jockey for position in the league standings. Rice has a firm hold on first place, but just two games seperate second place Tulane from sixth-place Marshall. In-between them, Southern Miss, Houston and East Carolina are all tied for third. Several showdowns are on this week’s schedule, as Rice hosts Houston, Tulane visits East Carolina and Southern Miss welcomes Memphis. The other conference series features UCF and UAB, an important series to determine final spots in the C-USA Championship, as the ninth place team does not qualify for the double-elimination event. Read the rest of this entry »

Top college baseball teams will take the “Road to Omaha” through at least 2030.

But they won’t be playing at Rosenblatt Stadium after 2010. Starting in 2011, the team buses will be heading downtown under a new College World Series agreement struck today with the NCAA. Read the rest of this entry »

HATTIESBURG - When Tyler Conn takes the mound in a closer for Southern Miss, his competitive nature comes out.

The Ocean Springs native is the nation’s best Division I stopper this season.

Heading into today’s game against New Orleans at Pete Taylor Park, the former Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College standout leads the nation in saves with 15, the single-season record for Southern Miss. He’s also a save away from tying the Conference-USA single-record of 16, set by Tulane Brandon Belanger in 1999. Read the rest of this entry »

A pair of freshmen have been honored as the Conference USA Baseball Players of the Week. After a highly-productive week that included leading his team to a conference series victory on the road, Marshall freshman designated hitter Victor Gomez has been named Conference USA Hitter of the Week. The league’s Pitcher of the Week honor went to East Carolina freshman right-hander Sthil Sowers, who earned a complete-game victory over No. 27 UNC Wilmington. Read the rest of this entry »

Going into this weekend the marquee matchup in Conference USA was Houston at Southern Miss as both teams positioned themselves for seeding at the C-USA Tournament and NCAA berths. However, the home-standing Golden Eagles won all three matchups, including a pair of one-run games to move ahead of the Cougars in the league standings. Tulane won two games at Memphis, with the third game being rained out. UCF surprised Rice on Friday night and played them tough the next two days, but the Owls took back-to-back one-run victories. In an expected high-scoring series, Marshall won twice at UAB and East Carolina swept Presbyterian in non-conference action. Read the rest of this entry »

For the second straight week, the Conference USA Hitter of the Week award will be shared by two players. Rice junior C Adam Zornes and Tulane freshman 3B Rob Segedin split this week’s honor after strong performances at the plate last week. The Pitcher of the Week award went to Houston sophomore RHP John Touchton, who had a win in a starting role and an effective relief appearance in two outings last week. Read the rest of this entry »

Rice has continued to distance itself from the rest of the pack in Conference USA. The No. 7 Owls swept a three-game series from No. 24 East Carolina to improve to 13-2 in league play. With second place Houston dropping two-of-three at UAB, Rice now owns a 3.5 game lead in the conference standings. Southern Miss and Tulane renewed their long-standing rivalry and the home standing Green Wave took two of three on Greer Field at Turchin Stadium. Marshall swept its series against UCF in Charleston to move to .500 in C-USA play and overall. Read the rest of this entry »

The baseball program is the crown jewel of Tulane’s athletic program, with a $10.5 million state-of-the-art facility, one of the highest-paid coaches in the country in Rick Jones and a rabid fan base. It has reached a place other major programs at the school can only envy, as their requests for similar upgrades face uphill battles.

The season ticket base hovered around 70 when Rick Jones arrived at Tulane in 1993 to coach baseball.

Expectations weren’t high. LSU was the team to beat. Basketball was the sport of choice.

Times certainly have changed.

In 15 years at Tulane, Jones has helped push Tulane baseball to a new stratosphere, one in which it sits among the nation’s elite programs, plays inside a plush new stadium and has a rabid fan base.

Unlike most major college athletic departments that place an emphasis on football and basketball, Tulane apparently has bucked that trend, with baseball serving as the model program.

TIMES-PICAYUNE: Baseball crown jewel at Tulane