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The Florida Gators are college baseball’s National Champions!
The Gators defeated the LSU Tigers 6-1 in Game 2 of the 2017 College World Series final, sweeping the Best of 3 series after winning Game 1 4-3 on Monday. With the win, Florida picks up their first-ever National Championship in baseball, ending a 103-year drought in the process.
The Gators’ 1-2 hitters, Deacon Liput and Dalton Guthrie, efforted the team’s offense by going a combined 4-10 on the night. Liput collected three RBI on the night, racking up two RBI singles, with the big blow being a two-RBI single in the bottom of the eighth inning to break the game open. J.J. Schwarz went 1-4 out of the 3-spot in the lineup but collected two RBI on the night. Jonathan India went 2-4 with a double and a run scored, as the team on the whole went 10-32 at the dish in the clinching victory.
Tyler Dyson was dynamic on the mound, shutting the LSU offense down in his six innings of work. Dyson allowed just three hits and one earned run to the 23 batters he faced, and UF’s bullpen shut it down the rest of the way. Michael Byrne and Jackson Kowar combined to allow just five hits over the final three innings, with Byrne tossing a strikeout. Kowar allowed one hit in the final 1.2 innings of work,a s the Gators spun a brilliant performance in the win.
LSU squandered a few chances early on which ultimately led to their demise. They fell behind 2-0 after the first two innings and simply couldn’t figure it out from there. The typically terrific Jared Poché threw 98 pitches in 5.2 innings, allowing seven hits in the process. Neither of the two runs served up by Poché were tagged to him, coming after errors - three were made by LSU in the loss - which makes things perhaps all the more frustrating. Antoine Duplantis and Greg Deichmann went a combined 0-7 in the 3- and 4-spots in the lineup while Michael Papierski and Beau Jordan went 0-8 in the 8- and 9-spots.