Road To A Title

• Published: Jul 6, 2009

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Key happenings during the LSU baseball team’s run to the 2009 national championship.

Starting out on top

In preseason polls, LSU was ranked No. 1 by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball, No. 2 by USA Today/ESPN and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.

Ott on the spot

When it became clear senior Louis Coleman needed to move into the weekend starting rotation, LSU coach Paul Mainieri went searching for somebody to replace Coleman as the closer. His hunt began and ended with freshman Matty Ott. Although Ott’s first run at slamming the door ended with a loss to UL-La-Lafayette, his composure after allowing a game-winning home run convinced Mainieri he’d found a closer. Ott saved a single-season record 16 games, allowing Coleman to go 14-2 as a starter.

Emotional spark plug

In late March when LSU’s offense hit a lethargic stretch, Mainieri shook up the lineup and inserted some new faces in the batting order. One was freshman center fielder Mikie Mahtook, who seized the moment with a pair of two-run homers in a 10-2 win over Harvard. Mahtook remained a starter and was one of the Tigers’ most clutch hitters with several key postseason hits and RBIs.

Road warriors

LSU was good on the road all season, winning all five SEC road series. The Tigers might’ve been at their best on back-to-back weekends when they took two of three games each at Georgia and Alabama. Coleman logged two of the seven wins he supplied after losses and LSU re-emerged as the team to beat in the SEC.

Infield shuffle

The Tigers lost their first and only SEC series of the season in mid-April, dropping the last two games to Tennessee after routing the Volunteers 18-3 in the opener. That came on the heels of a tough-to-swallow 3-1 loss to Nicholls State and prompted Mainieri to shake things up to shore up the Tigers defense. The result was the insertion of freshman Austin Nola at shortstop, which bumped DJ LeMahieu from short to second base and Ryan Schimpf from second to left field. Sophomore Leon Landry went to the bench and Mahtook over in center field. The defense improved, with Nola, LeMahieu and Mahtook solidifying the middle of the defense. With the new lineup, LSU went 28-5.

Back from dead

After closing out the regular season by tying Ole Miss for the SEC championship, the Tigers immediately stubbed their toe at the league tournament when Vanderbilt pitcher Mike Minor limited them to six hits in a 4-1 Commodores win. Unfazed, LSU rattled off five wins in the next four days, claiming the tourney crown, topping Vandy 6-2 behind seniors Ryan Byrd and Buzzy Haydel. Along the way, LSU aces Anthony Ranaudo and Coleman turned in their normal solid efforts. The key, though, was starts made by Daniel Bradshaw, Nolan Cain and Byrd in the final three games to get LSU the crown.