OMAHA, Neb. – Coaches can make game plans, but Mother Nature doesn’t care.
So it went for John Savage and the UCLA Bruins in their winner’s bracket matchup against LSU that started Monday night, was suspended due to weather, and resumed Tuesday. Savage used eight different pitchers, four of whom allowed at least one run in a 9-5 loss, and will have to figure out who on his staff will be available to pitch tonight, when the Bruins face Arkansas in an elimination game.
“When you’re in a winner’s bracket, you’ve got to do everything you can to stay in the winner’s bracket. Anybody that tells you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about or has never coached,” said UCLA head coach John Savage of his frequent pitching changes..
UCLA’s first three batters reached base Monday night, and Roman Martin hit a one-out double that scored Roch Cholowski for a 1-0 Bruins lead. AJ Salgado followed with a single that scored Mulivai Levu, and Payton Brennan’s grounder back to the mound scored Martin, making it 3-0.
With one out in the bottom half of the first, the Tigers uncaged the offense, getting three successive singles from Ethan Frey, Steven Milam, and Jake Brown, with Brown’s single scoring Frey to get LSU on the board. Jared Jones, the Tigers’ No. 5 hitter, quickly erased the memory of going 0-for-5 with five strikeouts in the opener against Arkansas, hitting a high fly ball to right field that carried and carried, landing just above the yellow home run line for a three-run homer and a 4-3 lead.
The “two strike hits by Steven, by Jake Brown, [set] the table for Jared’s homer. And it got us off and rolling,” said LSU head coach Jay Johnson. In all, five of LSU’s nine runs were driven in with two outs, all of them coming after the resumption of the game Tuesday morning.
Savage quickly went to the bullpen. Landon Stump was lifted after two innings and two batters when he walked Ethan Frey and Steven Milam to start the third inning, having given up four runs on five hits and two walks. In the bottom of the third, LSU added another when Luis Hernandez’ RBI single scored Frey.
Before the on-field promotions could start between innings, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for the area, and the tarp came out at 7:20 p.m. local time.
And then, the rains came. Steady rain fell on Charles Schwab Field, with significant lightning until approximately 9:40 p.m. local time. The game was delayed for two hours and 53 minutes before the NCAA announced that it was suspended and would resume at 10:03 a.m. CDT. The delay chased LSU starter Anthony Eyanson from the game after three innings, and Casan Evans took the mound for the Bayou Bengals when the game restarted.
“Coach Johnson had told me that once we got out of the delay, that I would be on the mound,” said Evans, who went 4 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on four hits when the game restarted Tuesday morning. “And then it got rolled over to the day, so I mean, just went back to the hotel and got ready for today, woke up early. And I mean, the mindset stays the same no matter when I come in the game, if I start or if I close.”
Wylan Moss took the mound for the Bruins to restart the game, and retired two batters before giving up a single to LSU leadoff man Derek Curiel. Frey followed with a single, as did Milam, and Curiel came in to score and make it 6-3. After Jake Brown singled to drive in Frey, Moss’s day was done, and UCLA head coach John Savage brought on Cal Randall to finish the inning, which he did by inducing a 6-3 groundout from Jared Jones.
In the seventh, UCLA’s Ian May walked Jared Jones to start the inning, and Savage gave him the hook, bringing on Jack O’Connor, the sixth pitcher of the game for the Bruins. Jones advanced on groundouts by Luis Hernandez and Michael Braswell III, then scored on Dickinson’s bloop single to right, giving LSU an 8-3 lead.
UCLA cut the deficit to 8-5 in the eighth, with Payton Brennan hitting into a fielder’s choice at second with the bases loaded to score Mulivai Levu, and a single from Blake Balsz that scored Roman Martin. With the bases still loaded, LSU then brought in Chase Shores, who got Cashel Dugger to ground into a fielder’s choice and end the inning.
In the ninth, with runners on first and third and the infield shifted heavily to the left side, Jared Jones hit a single to the right field, beating the shift and plating Ethan Frey for the fourth time in the game to make it 9-5.
Shores got four straight ground balls to second base to earn a four-out save and send LSU to Wednesday’s night game, where a win would send the Tigers to the championship series.
For Savage and the Bruins, it’s a quick turnaround. They haven’t played a double-header all season, and now will essentially have to play one with their season on the line in the second game, likely bullpenning the game.
“We have about five or six guys that didn’t throw either yesterday or today. So we’ll pick one or two, we’ll pick some guys out of that lot,” Savage said. “They didn’t ask for this. We have to deal with it. We’re the team that has to deal with it. So that’s okay. And a lot of them threw 10, 12, or 14 pitches. Most of those guys should be able to come back. But we do have still a pretty big group of guys that haven’t thrown.”
Photo: UCLA pitcher Wylan Moss (18) throws during an NCAA College World Series baseball game against Murray State, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Omaha, Neb. Moss was one of eight pitchers UCLA used in a game suspended by rain against LSU. (AP Photo/Cory Eads)
