OMAHA — LSU took the risk. North Carolina reaped the reward.
Tim Federowicz made the Tigers pay for intentionally walking the batter before him, hitting a grand slam in the top of the ninth inning Friday night to send North Carolina to a 7-3 victory in a College World Series elimination game disrupted twice by rain over two days.
“It was a great feeling to get up there with bases loaded in the College World Series with a chance to put us ahead,” Federowicz said. “I struck out the at-bat before, and I knew he would bring the slider. My adrenaline was pumping.”
Federowicz channeled that energy and drove LSU reliever Louis Coleman’s 1-1 slider into the middle of the stands in left field.
Carolina (53-13) moved to the Bracket 1 final against Fresno State on Saturday. The Tar Heels must beat the Bulldogs (44-29) twice to return to the best-of-three championship series for the third straight year.
Federowicz was an unlikely hero in the Tar Heels’ second win over LSU in this CWS. When he came to bat in the ninth, he was 1-for-11 in three CWS games, and he was 11-for-61 (.180) in 16 games in Omaha the past three years.
“I’d struggled a little bit, but I felt comfortable,” he said. “I was confident going up there.”
Coleman (8-1) was impressive for LSU (49-19-1) in the seventh and eighth innings. But Ryan Graepel doubled with one out, and things began to unravel for him.
Coleman intentionally walked Dustin Ackley, who had reached four times, and then struck out pinch-hitter Mark Fleury after his wild pitch put runners on second and third.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri chose to have Coleman, who had allowed one home run in 55 innings, intentionally walk Tim Fedroff, who came into the game batting .401, and take his chances with Federowicz with the bases loaded.
“I already have asked myself several times if I did the right thing,” Mainieri said. “If I had to do it over 1,000 times, I’d do the same thing. It just didn’t work out for us.”
Federowicz hit his fifth homer of the season and his first career grand slam. It also was the CWS’ first slam since 2001.
Since then, there had been 280 bases-loaded situations in the Series.
