2017 College World Series: Florida, LSU will meet in finals
By Carly Regehr
The last time two SEC schools met in the College World Series title game was in 1997, when LSU defeated Alabama.
A laundry list of things were checked off during the opening week of this year’s College World Series. For starters, a program finally dethroned Oregon State, the No. 1 seed that would end up finishing its season with just six losses. Surely, it wasn’t an easy task for the LSU Tigers, who would have to stick their tails in-between their legs after a 13-1 loss against Oregon State in Game 6. But they overcame a level of adversity, not just once but twice, earning LSU some much-needed credibility.
LSU’s Road to Omaha campaign was one for the ages, regardless of the 13-1 result. Throughout LSU’s games between Florida State and Oregon State, LSU would find stability in the team’s unsung heroes. Those heroes, like P Caleb Gilbert and C Mike Papierski, are the reason LSU’s playing for the title in the first place. And up until Game 12, where Florida allowed nine runs, their pitching staff has been lights out. Yes, Alex Faedo deserves a majority of the applause, but don’t sleep on Jackson Kowar (Game 4: 11 Ks vs. TCU).
To make the 2017 College World Series final interesting, both LSU and Florida are no strangers to each other. During the regular season, Florida would sweep that series, 2-1. However, that’s the same series, which featured one of Kowar’s worst performances of the season (five walks over five innings). As for the postseason, LSU and Florida have run into one another four times since 1991. Though they both participated in the 1998 and 2015 College World Series, they didn’t go head-to-head.
Statistically speaking, LSU has the upperhand over Florida. One advantage of theirs is the fact that they’re undefeated in every College World Series final they’ve attended (6-0). Florida has the opposite of LSU’s luck, completing their most recent tournament run in 2015 as the third-best team in Division I baseball. In fact, Florida would always be third-best, since they have always been over-shadowed by in-state rivals, Miami and Florida State.
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The 2017 College World Series title game will air on June 26 on ESPN. Since all three games – if necessary – are night games, both teams have a short window of opportunity to hop in an ice bath. While Paul Maineri is looking for his second title in seven years, Florida’s Kevin O’Sullivan wants to redo the 2015 College World Series, in which Florida was eliminated by the University of Virginia. If anything, the 2017 College World Series will be a competition of who has the better pitcher-catcher duo.
One should expect the LSU-Florida series to go to Game 3.