SEC teams make appearances in surprising regional championship

The LSU Tigers and Florida Gators both won their double headers on Sunday to force an extra day in the regionals. Now both teams will play for another regional championship on Monday. They needed to beat the team in the winners bracket twice to advance to the Super Regionals and both teams are halfway there.

Let’s take a look at what LSU and Florida did on Sunday to get to play on Monday.

LSU Tigers

On Sunday afternoon, LSU got a rematch against Wofford, but at bigger stakes. This game was an elimination game. Whoever lost was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament. The winner of this game would take on North Carolina in the championship, but had to beat the, twice.

LSU was able to eliminate Wofford from the tournament with a win on Sunday afternoon. They won this game 13-6.

Wofford got out to an early 5-0 lead in the first inning by errors and hits from Daniel Jackson and Jack Renwick. LSU would score three runs in response on a sacrifice fly out from Michael Braswell and run scoring hits from Jake Brown and Ashton Larson.

Wofford would score another run before LSU would score 10 runs. This scoring streak was started from Josh Pearson with a two run homer. Brady Neal hit a game tying single and then the bats got hot. They scored another 7 runs from hits from Jake Brown, Alex Milazzo, Josh Pearson, Brady Neal, and Jared Jones.

This clinched them a rematch with North Carolina, who they had to beat twice to advance to the Super Regionals. In the second game of the day for LSU, they were able to take down North Carolina to get another game on Monday with a final score of 8-4.

LSU came out early with a two run homer from Josh Pearson and a run scoring single from Michael Braswell to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead in the third. UNC responded with a run, but then the Tigers answered with five.

Tommy White, Steven Milam, and Josh Pearson each drove in a runs before Hayden Travinski hit a solo homer. This made the score 8-1.

North Carolina scored another three runs, but LSU was able to win it with a final score of 8-4. These two teams will play once again on Monday at 6:00 eastern standard time. Winner will head to the Super Regionals.

Florida Gators

On Sunday afternoon, Florida got to play Nebraska again, but this time for an elimination game. The loser of this game was eliminated from the tournament and the winner would face off against Oklahoma State. Florida was able to take down Nebraska with a final score of 17-11.

Both teams got off to a big start as they scored lots of runs in the first two innings. Gabe Swansen and Joshua Overbeek both hit homers for Nebraska and Jac Caglianone hit a big three run homer. After other hits, the score heading to the third was 7-4 Florida.

No more scoring until the sixth inning, which featured three home runs from Florida from Colby Shelton, Luke Heyman, and Dale Thomas.

Nebraska scored four runs in the eighth and ninth, but it wasn’t enough as the Gators win 17-11 to advance to a game two of the day against Oklahoma State. Florida would need to beat them twice to advance to the supers.

Oklahoma State got on the board first with a run scoring double by Zach Ehrhard. Florida later tied on a wild pitch to make the score 1-1.

A fielding error later gave Oklahoma State the lead, but Colby Shelton responded with a three run homer to give Florida a 4-2 lead. They scored another run to finish it at 5-2.

These two teams will face off again today at 3:00 eastern time. Winner of this game will head to the Super Regionals.