OMAHA, Neb.—Texas coach Augie Garrido conceded that his team’s College World Series finals opponent has played the best baseball of any team in Omaha.
LSU, after all, has hit nine home runs and holds a 32-11 scoring advantage in its three wins.
“But if it’s about drama,” Garrido said, “we’ve got that.”
Yes, the Longhorns certainly do.
No matter what happens in the best-of-three finals starting Monday, it’ll be tough for Texas to top its finish in a 4-3 victory over Arizona State in Friday night’s Bracket 2 final. That followed LSU’s 14-5 Bracket 1 win over Arkansas in the afternoon.
Texas’ Connor Rowe hit a game-winning solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, moments after Cameron Rupp tied it with a homer of his own as the Longhorns came from behind.
Rowe sent a shot into the left-field seats, then sprinted around the bases with his helmet raised in his right hand as his celebrating teammates waited at home plate to greet him.
So now a Texas team that won its first game here on a bases-loaded walk in the ninth and its second game after rallying from six runs down will try to become the first No. 1 national seed to win the title since Miami in 1999.
Texas (49-14-1) returns to the CWS finals for the first time since 2005, when the Longhorns won the last of their six national championships. LSU (54-16) will play for a sixth title, and first since 2000.
Rowe, who batted in the No. 9 spot, hit the first walkoff homer in Omaha since Texas’ Chance Wheeless did it in a win over Baylor in 2005.
It looked as if the Sun Devils (51-14) would force a Saturday rematch for the Bracket 2 championship after they took a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth on Zach Wilson’s RBI triple.
Mitchell Lambson (9-5) struck out Brandon Loy to start the bottom of the ninth, but Rupp tied it with a homer that carried at least 420 feet to dead center, one of the longest in recent CWS memory.
“When I hit it,” Rupp said, “I knew it was gone.”
After Preston Clark popped out, Rowe hit the first offering from Lambson over the left-field wall, well above the leaping Kole Calhoun.
“As time passes, this is probably going to be a game to watch on TV and recap and say I was glad to be a part of it,” Calhoun said. “But right now, this one hurts.”
Austin Wood (6-1), who gave up Zach Wilson’s go-ahead triple in the top of the ninth, got the win with three innings of relief of starter Cole Green.
LSU used an impressive show of power and pitching to win Bracket 1. The Tigers hit four home runs against the Razorbacks and Anthony Ranaudo bounced back from a subpar outing to throw six shutout innings.
“It’s a dream come true that we got to this point,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “When I say a dream, it’s not that I didn’t think we couldn’t. We thought we could when we started the year. Now there’s an opportunity for us, and now we’ll see if we can seize it.”
The Tigers hadn’t played since Monday’s 9-1 win over Arkansas, and they had to wait even longer because of a thunderstorm that pushed back the start of Friday’s game 2 1/2 hours.
“They were chomping at the bit to get back out there on the ballfield,” Mainieri said.
Once out there, the Tigers showed no signs of rust against an Arkansas team they dominated all year. Arkansas (41-24) was outscored 23-6 by LSU in two CWS games, and the Razorbacks lost four of five overall against the Tigers this season.
LSU scored in six of the nine innings Friday and shut out Arkansas for 14 straight innings over their two meetings in Omaha. The Tigers also beat Virginia 9-5 and have won 13 in a row.
“Up to this point, we’ve been rolling pretty well,” said designated hitter Blake Dean, who hit LSU’s first homer in the fifth. “We haven’t reached a stress point in any game. Our toughest game so far was Virginia. We’re more confident than we ever have been.”
The Tigers went deep three straight innings to give Ranaudo (11-3) a big cushion.
Ranaudo, who lasted 3 1-3 innings in last Saturday’s start against Virginia, allowed four hits and had five strikeouts against no walks. Austin Ross took over to start the seventh with the Tigers leading 11-0.
Dean hit his second homer in three games, and 17th of the season, off Mike Bolsinger in the fifth.
Jared Mitchell, the Chicago White Sox’s first-round draft pick, hit an opposite-field homer to left off former LSU pitcher TJ Forrest the next inning.
Ryan Schimpf followed with his team-leading 21st, sending Forrest’s fastball near the top of the right-field stands and starting a five-run seventh.
Tyler Hanover added a pinch-hit two-run homer in the ninth off Zack Cox, the seventh of a CWS record-tying eight pitchers used by the Razorbacks. The teams combined to use 13 pitchers, tying a CWS mark.
Brett Eibner’s two-run homer off Ross ended the Razorbacks’ scoreless-inning streak in the seventh, and Chase Leavitt hit a three-run homer for Arkansas in the ninth.
