2003 College World Series Game 5
Complete CWS Index

by John Manuel
June 15, 2003

OMAHA--South Carolina bucked some serious history to stay alive in the College World Series.

Junior catcher Landon Powell, who started the scoring in a high-scoring affair tabbed as a Southeastern Conference backyard battle, ended the scoring with an RBI double in the eighth off LSU closer Billy Sadler. That capped South Carolina's three-run inning and led the Gamecocks to an 11-10 victory, ousting the Tigers from the tournament.

"Our assistant coach Jim Toman is a great motivator, and he gets us up every inning," Powell said of the 2002 Assistant Coach of the Year. "He told us in the fifth inning, 'We're going to leave 'em out there in the eighth or the ninth, I can feel it. We're gonna leave them on the field.' You can't imagine what that does for a player."

Often in its illustrious CWS history, LSU has left opponents on the field with some famous comebacks. A five-run rally against Texas A&M back in 1993 stands as the biggest deficit ever overcome by the Tigers in a CWS win. LSU's two most famous comebacks were in championship games--in the 1996 title game, overcoming a four-run deficit capped by Warren Morris' home run, and in 2000, when Brad Cresse's RBI single brought LSU back from three runs down and brought a fifth national championship to Baton Rouge.

For much of Sunday afternoon's marathon game at Rosenblatt Stadium, it appeared the Tigers had pulled off their biggest comeback in Omaha ever. They trailed 6-0 in the first inning, but rallied to score 10 of the game's next 11 runs and took a 10-8 lead into the bottom of the eighth. LSU entered the game 46-1 all-time in NCAA postseason play when scoring 10 runs or more, and it was 22-0 in such games this year.

South Carolina stole the comeback thunder from the Tigers with one run in the seventh and three in the eighth to eliminate the Tigers. It's the first time LSU has gone 0-2 in the CWS since 1994 and just the second such performance overall. It also was the first time the Tigers have lost to an SEC rival in CWS play in seven games.

"I saw this morning that LSU was 6-0 against SEC teams here, and I thought that might be a bad omen for us," Gamecocks coach Ray Tanner said. "I tried to be optimistic about it, though."

South Carolina gave him an early cause for confidence as it pounced on starter Bo Pettit, who entered the game having given up 14 runs in the first innings of his 15 starts, and with an 0-4 lifetime record against the Gamecocks. Their assault on him this time started with a runner at third and two out, as Powell's RBI single that scored Jon Coutlangus started a string of six straight Gamecocks reaching base. Stephen Tolleson ended the rally with a two-run single that made it 6-0 and ended Pettit's day.

"The (pitching) matchup was outstanding," LSU coach Smoke Laval said. "(The Gamecocks are) free swingers--Stanford beat them on 84 pitches the other day--and I figured they'd come out swinging. Bo gets lefthanded hitters out better than anyone on our team. It couldn't have been a better matchup."

The matchup was better for LSU when freshman lefthander Jason Determann relieved Pettit. He got the last out of the first frame and proceeded to restore order while the Tigers offense gathered itself. Homers by Clay Harris and DH Quinn Stewart in the second made it 6-3. South Carolina made it 7-3 in the second but squandered a chance to expand the lead further when Determann got a bases-loaded 4-6-3 double play to end the inning, niftily started by Blake Gill and turned quickly by Aaron Hill.

LSU's rally continued with two in the third, chasing South Carolina starter Steven Bondurant, and went into overdrive against reliever Aaron Rawl. Ryan Patterson doubled home J.C. Holt, to make it 7-6, and came home one out later on Harris' RBI single, tying the game. Harris went to third on Gill's single, with Gill moving to second on the throw. Jon Zeringue's infield single scored Harris to give LSU the lead, and a sacrifice fly by Stewart made it 9-7 Tigers, chasing Rawl and bringing sophomore lefthander Matt Campbell in.

It was Campbell who changed the momentum. While the Tigers got an unearned run to make it 10-7 in the fifth, he gave up nothing else for the final four frames. Only freshman catcher Matt Liuzza, who had two hits, solved him over that span as Campbell got 14 groundball outs before striking out Ivan Naccarata to end the game.

Campbell went 5 1/3 innings and improved to 6-4, 3.48 with his stellar outing, which was similar in a way to what he did last year in Omaha. Campbell got a big win against Clemson in the 2002 Series with a 5 1/3-inning relief outing, but did it with eight strikeouts rather than groundballs.

"Matt was unbelievable with how he came in and stopped the bleeding," Powell said. "Once he got that first out (in the fourth), I could see he what kind of stuff he had. He had his curveball and slider going for strikes and did a great job keeping the ball down.

"He pitched great here last year and now he's pitching great again here this year."

Meanwhile, Determann was tiring. After walking just seven all year, he finished with four walks Sunday in 6 2/3 innings. After throwing four shutout innings from the third through the sixth, Determann gave up a solo homer to Kevin Melillo in the seventh, then gave up a hit and a walk to start the eighth. After Justin Harris' sacrifice bunt moved both runners up, Laval turned to closer Billy Sadler to face Brian Buscher. The senior third baseman, the SEC's batting champion at .383, was hitless in the CWS to that point.

"There's a reason I'm the 3-hole hitter," Buscher said after the game, and he proved it against Sadler, lashing a first-pitch changeup for a run-scoring single to right, and an error by Zeringue in right allowed the tying run to score. Sadler then grooved a fastball to Powell, who crushed it to the gap in left-center for a double, plating Buscher for the lead.

Campbell made it stand, leaving South Carolina as the last SEC team standing. The Gamecocks have senior righthander Chris Hernandez, who relieved Friday in the loss to Stanford, available to start in their next elimination game, against the loser of Sunday night's Stanford-Cal State Fullerton contest.