Tough to double up

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jun 19, 2009 - Page: 1C

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OMAHA, Neb. — Figuring out how to beat the No. 1-ranked LSU baseball team has been a steep enough challenge for opponents this season. Doing so twice has been an even slipperier task.

That’s the daunting task facing Arkansas starting today, when the Tigers and Razorbacks collide at Rosenblatt Stadium in the championship round of the College World Series’ bracket one.

With a victory in a 1 p.m. game today, LSU (53-16) snatches the first spot in the best-of-three national championship series, which starts Monday night.

Should Arkansas (41-23) prevail, the teams would meet at either 1 or 6 p.m. Saturday, with the winner moving into the finals.

In the fifth game of the season between the two Southeastern Conference foes, everything seems stacked in LSU’s favor.

The Tigers are coming off a three-day rest. After falling to LSU 9-1 Monday, the Razorbacks had to grind out a 12-inning, 4-3 win against Virginia on Wednesday.

Following his worst start of the season in the CWS opening round, Tigers co-ace Anthony Ranaudo is motivated for a shot at redemption against the Hogs. Arkansas will counter with senior left-hander Steven Richards, making his first start of the season and just the second of his career.

On the heels of Monday’s loss and Wednesday’s extra-inning victory, the Razorbacks pitching staff is depleted.

Perhaps the biggest factor in LSU’s favor is its record in second games and beyond against the same opponent this season. The Tigers are 31-7 in 2009 when facing a foe for a second time or more. The only SEC team that beat LSU twice this season was Tennessee, which also stuck the Tigers with their only back-to-back setbacks.

“We kind of feel like it’s hard for any team to beat us twice,” LSU catcher Micah Gibbs said. “It’s a credit to the whole team, because as soon as we play somebody once, we know how they play, and we have a lot of different facets to our team and understand what we have to do to beat somebody.”

That takes care of the how.

The why makes a lot of sense, too.

“With this team, when we lose a game, there’s a lot of motivation to come back the next day and take care of business,” said sophomore starting pitcher Austin Ross, who will be on call out of the bullpen if Ranaudo stumbles today. “For the pitchers, once we learn a team’s tendencies, we feel like that gives us an edge.”