BATON ROUGE, LA. – After waiting 14 years to play in an NCAA Regional, the Trojans had to wait more than five hours longer to play LSU at Alex Box Stadium Friday night. The 2 p.m. start was pushed to 7:36 p.m., due to lightning in the area and after only trailing 3-0 after five innings fell 7-0 to the Tigers - the No. 6 overall seed.
"First of all, I'm proud to be a Little Rock Trojan," head coach
Chris Curry said. "Proud of my team tonight. I thought they stepped on one of the biggest stages in college baseball. I thought they competed. I thought they were not afraid of the moment. The moment wasn't too big for them.
"A lot of credit to LSU, great job, especially on the mound. And we had a couple of mistakes on some pitches, and they made us pay for it, like good teams do. But I'm very proud of these guys for getting us to this game. It's a big step for our program that we talk about. It was a team goal after winning the regular season championship last year."
The Trojans will try to find their first Regional win in school history at 2 p.m., Saturday when they face the loser of the late game between Dallas Baptist and Rhode Island.
"I rode back with the team instead of scouting because I wanted to debrief them. I knew adrenaline would be high, and I just wanted to talk to them about getting ready for another game," Curry said. "Our season is not over."
Senior pitcher
Jackson Wells took the loss, but he went five innings against the Tigers' vaunted lineup and scattered seven hits while giving up three earned runs and walking three with three strikeouts.
"I knew going into it, it would be difficult," Wells said. "They're all good hitters, SEC hitters, ranked sixth overall. I knew it was going to be a challenge. Kind of didn't have fastball command at first. Had to pitch off the breaking balls a little bit. Got into some trouble with some walks and hits early and then battled back.
"Really, the cutter was pretty good today. Just missing barrels with it whenever I got in a jam and kind of stuck with it."
LSU pitcher Anthony Eyanson got the win going 7.2 innings. He held the Trojans to five hits, but
Ty Rhoades was able to get two singles off the highly regarded MLB prospect.
"He was just commanding his fastball and flipping that breaker right after," Rhoades said. "So, when you get him to the plate, you go bang, bang 0-2, you're going. It's just a challenge to battle back from that."
One of the biggest challenges of the day for the Trojans was passing the time. They left their hotel at 11 a.m., and ended up having to eat three different times over the six hours. Some players napped while others played cards. Rhoades "watched YouTube."
"For me, if I'm locked in for too long, you start overthinking it," Wells said. "Really, it was just chilling with the guys, watching games that were going on today and then just chilling, waiting to see what's going on and just be ready to lock it back in."
