For a back-and-forth, tension-packed two hours and 58 minutes at The Chuck on Thursday night, The Greatest Show on Dirt produced, perhaps, its greatest installment.
The call came in around 10 minutes to 5pm local time when Rhett Lowder and Paul Skenes were announced as the starting pitchers for No. 1 Wake Forest and No. 5 LSU in a game that would send the loser home and the winner to the Men’s College World Series Finals. After playing coy the night before, Demon Deacons head coach Tom Walter and Tigers head coach Jay Johnson were riding with their aces in the biggest game of the season. The two hurlers — who are projected to be top 10 picks, according to MLB.com’s Top 200 list for the 2024 draft — put up a pair of masterful performances on the biggest stage that somehow exceeded the expectations that were already as high as the partly cloudy Omaha, Nebraska sky they pitched under.
Skenes got the game started with a 10-pitch frame in the top of the first inning. Six of those pitches hit triple digits with the last one — to finish off a three-pitch punchout of ACC all-time home run leader Brock Wilken — registered at 101 MPH on the radar gun at Charles Schwab Field Omaha. The 2023 Dick Howser Trophy winner threw 120 pitches over eight innings of shutout ball on four days rest after tossing 123 in a 6-3 win over Tennessee. He scattered a pair of hits, walked one batter, and finished with nine strikeouts to pump his season total for punchouts to 209 — a new LSU and SEC single-season record.
For every zero Skenes put up in the top half of an inning, Lowder was willing and able to match it. The reigning two-time ACC Pitcher of the Year got 21 outs on 88 pitches over seven scoreless frames — the seventh time this season he’s held an opponent scoreless over seven-plus innings. Of those 21 outs, 15 of them came either via groundout (9) or strikeout (6).
The two workhorse aces combined for 26 swings and misses and 43 called strikes on the night. A true masterclass that even both head coaches couldn’t help but marvel at after the game despite the full gamut of emotions they must have been experiencing between the two of them.
“The expectations coming into this game with that matchup were off the charts and both teams delivered on that,” Wake Forest head coach Tom Walter said. “That’s near impossible to do.”
LSU head coach Jay Johnson agreed, “The best pitched college baseball game I have ever seen from both sides … you might see four pitchers that were on that mound tonight from both teams that will pitch in Major League Baseball All-Star games.”
With the hurlers engaged in a legendary stalemate, the difference in the game came down to two plays by the purple and white that might never be forgotten in Omaha, Baton Rouge, or unfortunately, Winston-Salem. The first came with one out in the top of the eighth inning. Wake Forest second baseman Justin Johnson started it off by drawing a five-pitch walk to earn the only free pass of the night off Paul Skenes. He moved to second on a sac bunt and then over to third on strike three that got away from Skenes to put runners on the corners with one down. Two pitches later, the Demon Deacons called for a safety squeeze that was nearly executed to perfection. Shortstop Marek Houston got the bunt down and up the first base line and Johnson broke for home on contact. Against any other first baseman on this night, that might have been a run on the board. But LSU’s Tre’ Morgan made a jaw-dropping pick and flip home while sliding head-first onto the grass in front of home plate. Catcher Alex Milazzo snagged the ball and swiped the tag on Johnson’s jersey as he dove to the dish.
“I think he showed everyone that he’s the most athletic first baseman out there,” Skenes said. “I saw [Houston] lay the bunt down and Tre’ just came flying in and made the play. He picked me up.”
The second moment came three innings later. In the bottom of the 11th after LSU reliever Thatcher Hurd stranded a pair of runners by getting Wilken to fly out, Tigers center fielder Dylan Crews laced a 1-2 sweeper into left field for a leadoff single. Walter went to the bullpen and brought in closer Camden Minacci to face sophomore third baseman Tommy White. Minacci’s first pitch was a center-cut slider and White did not miss it. A ping and a roar followed as the ball jumped off the barrel of the bat and landed in the left field bleachers next to the LSU bullpen for a two-run walk-off home run that gave the Tigers a thrilling 2-0 win.
“I thought a heater was coming,” White said of the approach to his game-winning at-bat. “I was very amped up and I saw a slider that was up and I got my bat head to it.”
Between the epic pitch-for-pitch showdown between Skenes and Lowder, the run-(and game)-saving play by Morgan, and the blast by White, Jay Johnson summed it all it up in a way everyone who watched it either person or on TV would agree: “That was pretty special.”
Next up for the LSU Tigers is a day off ahead of a best-of-three championship series against Florida in a rematch of the 2017 Men’s College World Series Final that the Gators swept to claim their one and only national title. First pitch of Game 1 is scheduled for 6:00pm (central time) on Saturday night.
