LSU took the Game 1 of the College World Series 4-3 after a record-breaking night on the mound from Ty Floyd and a game-winning home run from Cade Beloso in the top of the 11th inning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what head coach Jay Johnson said had to say after the thrilling victory.<\/p>\n
Opening statement<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: Great college baseball game. Two of the best teams in the country, a ton of execution by both teams from the mound. Great defensive plays. Really good, quality at-bats.<\/p>\n Ty was outstanding tonight. Really hard to put into words what that performance meant for the outcome of the game and for our team.<\/p>\n I think the eighth inning was the turning point, getting through the eighth, sending him back out there against their best hitters and striking out the side was amazing.<\/p>\n Riley obviously did what Riley\u2019s done here and executed at a high level. Really proud of him for getting through that first and second one-out, I believe it was in the tenth with Langford and Caglianone.<\/p>\n And offensively we did a lot of things right. Getting Sproat out before the fifth inning was a good job by our team. He\u2019s going to be a high draft pick. And we executed really well there.<\/p>\n Hit into tough luck with the bases loaded there with Tommy lining to third base. I thought that was a good at-bat. Sproat did a nice job wiggling out of it where we might have been able to add some on early.<\/p>\n But we stayed with it. And Tommy and Cade getting those swings were outstanding. On to tomorrow.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> Going with Ty, you\u2019ve talked all year about he\u2019s a winner, et cetera. But obviously the resiliency that he has to limit it, we talked about that as well. Just his performance tonight, what does it mean to you to see it?<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: It\u2019s coaching. What I mean \u2014 no, what I mean by that, we need to have a reason to be there. When you have a guy that\u2019s as talented as that, sometimes you have to get them to the point they understand what they need to be successful, give them a path to execute that and get them believing in themselves.<\/p>\n That\u2019s really all we\u2019ve tried to do over two years. And I mentioned he finished the season really strong last year. He was very unselfish at the beginning of this thing the first two weeks of the season. We needed him in the bullpen until we figured out who we were going to be. And he did that. Helped us get off to a good start there.<\/p>\n Like I said, he\u2019s had a terrific season. Nothing better than that tonight. But we\u2019re not sitting here in this position without Ty Floyd. I feel like he\u2019s one of the most underrated, underappreciated players in college baseball this year.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> You said there was a specific turning point for you in the eighth inning to send him back out there. What went into that decision?<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: We had a spot where we thought we would go to Riley and it was kind of \u2014 we had Guidry down there warming up. I felt like we may get into a lengthy game, just with Neely throwing the ball as well as he was. Those are the two guys we were going to use and go to.<\/p>\n And so it was a little bit of a tricky spot. So for him to get two more hitters was a big deal. And then there was no way, with the way he pitched to Kurland and Langford, like, it was Caglionone was going to be his. And he deserved to finish that inning. I\u2019m glad he did. Made some great pitches and allowed us to turn the ball over to Riley.<\/p>\n I think striking out the side with those three hitters right there, that\u2019s legit. That\u2019s pitching at the highest level, especially when he emptied the tank to put us in the position he did for the first seven innings.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> Second game you\u2019ve won here in extra innings. I wonder, what goes into building that resiliency offensively especially when things weren\u2019t seemingly going y\u2019all\u2019s way at the beginning of the night?<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: I don\u2019t think we look at the game the same way people on the outside of the fence look at the game. I think we\u2019re facing a team that\u2019s won 53 games this year. We\u2019re facing a pitcher \u2014 and that\u2019s all we\u2019ve faced here with our bracket. It\u2019s got to be one of the best pitching brackets in College World Series history.<\/p>\n We just don\u2019t get discouraged. We set the table in I believe it was the second or the third. And Tommy hits the line drive. And then Sproat made some pitches. I think that was more him than us.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t think anybody thought anything of leaving guys on base or any of those types of things. And we got good hitters, and part of what good hitters do they hit mistakes. Tommy was in the two-strike count right there. Fisher left the ball up, and he put a great swing on it.<\/p>\n Neely, I don\u2019t even know if it was that bad of a pitch. I haven\u2019t seen Cade\u2019s home run. But he was in position to hit on time. He stayed short. He let the pitcher supply the power and put a great swing on it.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s we\u2019re doing what we do. And the last inning before he hit the home run, we wanted to get kind of settled back down again. And if somebody\u2019s going to hit a big home run in extra innings, maybe I\u2019ll have the offensive meeting a little sooner because I like that.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> You come into these games after we\u2019ve just been mesmerized by Skenes and Lowder. Feels like Ty has kind of like just flown by, but this is two performances now against really top-notch offenses where he basically looked like this the entire time?<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: He\u2019s there. I think it\u2019s probably just because of Paul \u2014 you know what I mean? \u2014 and Paul being so out of this world good. Nobody\u2019s really paid attention to him, but the pro people are. He\u2019s not going to last very long on the draft board. Somebody will be very, very happy with Ty Floyd.<\/p>\n I think he\u2019ll pitch for a very long time. Like I mentioned with a couple of the other pitchers in the game on Thursday night, there\u2019s a chance for it to be a short arc from Omaha to a big league stadium for him.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> Have you ever seen a story that\u2019s quite like Cade\u2019s in terms of being from the New Orleans area and here for five years and to be just coming up in these big clutch moments? I guess just talk about that perspective a little bit.<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: I\u2019m really proud of him. I think I mentioned this earlier. He\u2019s had a great tournament. So we\u2019ve talked about him a lot, that he didn\u2019t have a very good 2021 season. We needed to shift some things.<\/p>\n But my first impressions of him were he was all about the team. All he wanted to do was be a great player for LSU. He\u2019s never mentioned pro baseball one time. It\u2019s just what can I do to help, whether that\u2019s leadership, fix my swing, improve my approach, maybe be able to play some first base.<\/p>\n And he wasn\u2019t playing at the beginning of the season because Tommy hurt his shoulder and so we had to shift the DH position around. I just kind of had a feeling we\u2019d get to our best team, he would be part of that. That was really clear. He never wavered in any of that.<\/p>\n I tell people all the time, him going down last year, that hurt our team dramatically. I think if you\u2019re paying attention to the College World Series, you can clearly see why.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> Obviously we talked about Cade, but Gavin as well. Just the veteran presence on this team and its ability to see the moment and then stay in it?<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: I think you have to have two things to \u2014 you have to have a little more than two things. But you have to have two things to get here and to win here. You have to have future Major League players. That\u2019s clear. Nobody\u2019s getting here any more without future Major League players, and you have to have old players that really know what they\u2019re doing. Those two guys really know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n The buy-in piece of it, to just a new deal, I mean they\u2019ve made this for me as a new coach. Like those two guys have made this situation, program, culture, they\u2019re as important as anybody. They don\u2019t get talked about the same way because you\u2019ve got Dylan and Paul, and those guys should be talked about, too, because they\u2019re leaders and they\u2019re special talents.<\/p>\n But when it was 2-0, we know who drove in the first two runs today. They\u2019re sitting right in that spot in the order for a reason because I know what I\u2019m going to get in terms of those at-bats.<\/p>\n Q.<\/strong> Wanted to ask about the catch with Josh, we saw it the other night with Tre\u2019, those are game-deciders. We think about clutchness with pitching and hitting, what do you make of the elite defensive plays you\u2019ve made that have changed games tonight?<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH JOHNSON: Yeah, I think our team is super locked in. I\u2019ve mentioned this before, Marc Wanaka, who positions our defense, is as good at that as anybody. Not college baseball, in baseball. That\u2019s a tough one. And you\u2019re chewing on the matchup, do you bring somebody in for Langford? He\u2019s hitting .390, but I think I\u2019ll go with the guy that\u2019s pitched here now six times that\u2019s just been filling up the zone and got the ball down just enough where he couldn\u2019t elevate it. And he got it just either in or off the barrel enough. I can\u2019t remember at this point.<\/p>\n And Josh was standing where he needed to be. Broke back and made a heck of a play. And he\u2019s a good defender.<\/p>\n Somebody asked me, hey, are you going to keep going with him, he\u2019s maybe not swinging the bat as well as some of the other guys here, that\u2019s not even a thought because I know he\u2019s going to walk, move the offense and he\u2019s going to play great defense in left field. And that was probably the defensive play of the game tonight.<\/p>\n The post What Jay Johnson said after LSU\u2019s thrilling 4-3 Game 1 CWS win<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LSU took the Game 1 of the College World Series 4-3 after a record-breaking night…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}