Virginia-LSU Postgame Notes

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Men’s College World Series Notes Game 1 June 13, 2009
Game 1: LSU 9, Virginia 5
Attendance: 24,904 (ties Session 2 Record)

LSU plays Arkansas Monday at 6 p.m. (Arkansas is the home team)
Virginia plays Cal St. Fullerton Monday at 1 p.m. in an elimination game (Virginia is the home team)

Tonight’s attendance of 24,904 ties the Session 2 record originally set on June 17, 2005, when Nebraska defeated Arizona State, 5-3. Today’s attendance for both sessions is 48,453, well ahead of the 44,957 for the first two sessions of the 2008 MCWS.

Virginia
-The Cavaliers are the ninth straight team to lose their first-ever game at the MCWS. The last team to win a MCWS opener was Georgia Tech in 1994. Southern Miss will look to break the streak when they play Texas Sunday night.
– The announced crowd of 24,104 was the largest to ever witness Virginia baseball game. The previous high was 17,860 people vs. Clemson on May 28, 2005 at the ACC Tournament, which was held that year in Jacksonville, Fla.
-The nine runs by LSU are the most Virginia has allowed in the 2009 NCAA Tournament and the most runs UVa has allowed since May 15, when Virginia Tech scored nine runs in a 9-8 victory over UVa. Prior to Saturday, Virginia had allowed only 10 runs in its first six NCAA Tournament games (1.45 team ERA) and had not allowed more than four runs in any NCAA Tournament game.
-The nine runs allowed by Virginia marked only the sixth time in 63 games where an opponent scored nine-or-more runs in a game. Virginia entered the MCWS ranked third nationally in ERA at 3.14.
-Second baseman Keith Werman finished with a career-high four hits, going 4-for-5 against LSU. His previous high was three hits against Duke on May 12.
-Danny Hultzen’s five strikeouts upped his season total to 100, which is a Virginia single-season freshman record and ranks eighth on the Cavalier single-season list. Hultzen’s 3.0 inning start was his shortest start of the year. His previous season low was a 3.1-inning stint against Georgia Tech on April 11.
-Tyler Cannon’s triple in the fourth inning marked UVa’s 28th triple this season, setting a school record. The 1993 team previously held the record with 27 in a season.
-Third baseman Steven Proscia hit UVa’s first CWS home run and now has 10 homers, the most by a UVa rookie since Sean Doolittle hit 12 in 2005.

LSU
-With tonight’s win, LSU now has a national-best 52 wins on the season and is the only school in the country with at least 50 wins this season.
-With the win, the Tigers are now 31-19 in 15 MCWS appearances and helped the SEC go 2-0 in the opening day of competition following Arkansas’ 10-6 win over Cal State Fullerton. The last conference to open a MCWS with a 2-0 record in one day was the Pac-10 in 2007 (Arizona State and Oregon State on June 16).
-LSU won its MCWS opener for the first time since the 2000 MCWS, when the Tigers won the last of their five national titles. Prior to tonight, LSU had dropped its last three MCWS openers.
-The Tigers have now won a season-high 11 consecutive games following tonight’s win and have not lost since a 4-1 loss to Vanderbilt in the opening round of the SEC Tournament on May 21.
The Tigers are now 6-0 in the NCAA Tournament, hitting .342 as a team and averaged 8.2 runs per game in that stretch.
-With two homers tonight, LSU upped its season total to 96, the most among the MCWS teams, and are now 22-3 when hitting at least two homers in a game.
-Anthony Ranauno now has an SEC-leading 149 strikeouts on the season to rank sixth on LSU’s single-season list. It is the most strikeouts by a Tiger sincee Kurt Ainsworth fanned 157 hitters in 1999
-Anthony Ranaudo’s 3.1 inning stint was his shortest outing of the year and the only time in 17 starts where he did not pitch at least five innings. He had thrown at least seven innings in his last five starts, and his previous low was five innings against Villanova on Feb. 21.
-Austin Ross made his first relief appearance of the year, as he started in his first 16 appearances and collected the win with two innings of relief
-Ryan Schimpf is now hitting .458 (11-for-24) with three homers and nine RBIs in LSU’s six NCAA Tournament games after going 2-for-4 with a homer, two RBIs and two runs scored against Virginia.
-LSU is now 4-0 all-time against Virginia as the teams have not met since the 2000 season
-LSU is now 25-1 this season when scoring at least nine runs in a game this season
-LSU now has 21 come-from-behind wins during the season
-LSU is now 47-0 when leading after six innings