HOOVER, Ala. — Late Tuesday night under the lights at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, the defending NCAA national champion LSU Tigers survived a 2-1 grind into the eighth inning, watched shortstop Steven Milam — the player his own teammates call “Playoff Steve” — drive a two-run home run to right field that opened the game up, and walked off with a 6-2 win over the No. 11 seed Oklahoma Sooners to advance to a Wednesday second-round matchup with No. 6 Auburn.
For the No. 14 seed Tigers, the win extends a tournament that — given the seeding — was always going to require winning multiple games on the unforgiving side of the bracket. For the Oklahoma Sooners, in their first SEC Tournament appearance after moving over from the Big 12 a year ago, the loss ends their league postseason debut after one game.
LSU is now scheduled to face Auburn on Wednesday, May 20 at 9 p.m. ET on the SEC Network — the final game of Day 2 in Hoover.
Tigers win! Tigers win! pic.twitter.com/6U6zSON38l
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) May 20, 2026
Playoff Steve
LSU led 4-2 through seven innings. Oklahoma had not lost contact. Then catcher Cade Arrambide singled up the middle to open the eighth. Two outs later, with Arrambide still on first, Milam stepped in against Oklahoma right-hander Jackson Cleveland and turned on a 3-1 pitch, driving it over the right field wall for a two-run home run to extend LSU’s lead to 6-2.
The label was already attached. Sophomore Derek Curiel — speaking with World Baseball Network correspondent Matt Tallarini in a postgame interview after going 3-for-5 with two doubles down the left-field line — laid out the case for his shortstop.
“Steven Milam has been legit for us all year. I think he’s the best shortstop in the country,” Curiel said. “He’s got the best glove. And he comes through when it matters. We call him Playoff Steve for a reason. He owns this place, Hoover, and he also owns Omaha. There’s no one I’d rather have up in the big situation than Steven Milam. And there’s no one I’d want the ball hit to besides Steven Milam.”
Milam finished 1-for-3 with the home run, a walk, two RBI, and a run scored.
Curiel comes through
Beyond Milam’s eighth-inning blow, Curiel was the day’s offensive engine. The Top 100 MLB Pipeline prospect we flagged as a name to watch in our No. 13-16 preview finished 3-for-5 with two doubles down the left-field line.
His first double came in the top of the fifth, on the inning that broke the game open. With LSU trailing 1-0 after an unearned Oklahoma run in the fourth, Mason Braun was hit by a pitch leading off, Omar Serna Jr. singled, and then Curiel doubled to score Braun and tie the game 1-1. Two batters later — after Cade Arrambide struck out — Milam reached on a fielder’s choice that should have ended the inning, but a throwing error by Oklahoma third baseman Camden Johnson scored Curiel and brought Serna Jr. around to score unearned, giving LSU a 3-1 lead it would never relinquish.
For Curiel, postgame, the win was about the math of the tournament.
“We know our backs are on the wall,” he said. “We know if it’s winter, go home. If we lose, our season’s over. We’ve got to take it a game at a time. Our goal is obviously to win five here in Hoover, but we can’t do that if we don’t win game two tomorrow. For a lot of guys, this might be the last time they wear an LSU jersey. Some guys, the last time they maybe play baseball. So it means a lot, and we’re going to give everything we’ve got.”
The “win five” framing matters. LSU’s path through the loser’s bracket to the SEC championship would require five tournament wins, starting with Tuesday’s. That math is brutal on pitching staffs. Whether Jay Johnson and his staff have the arms to navigate it is the question that defines the Tigers’ next six days.
Chef's Kiss All The Way Around 🤌@ArrambideCade x @Monster_Milam99 pic.twitter.com/34AuSQFu5z
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) May 20, 2026
The arms held up
Tuesday night’s pitching ledger gave reason for optimism. LSU starter Grant Fontenot went 2.1 innings, allowing three hits, one earned run, one walk, and one strikeout on 36 pitches. The early hook was strategic — Jay Johnson typically pulls the trigger fast in tournament settings when it means getting his bullpen leverage early.
Gavin Guidry took the ball next and was the pitcher of the game. Across 3.1 innings of relief, Guidry allowed two hits, one unearned run, two walks, and struck out six on 59 pitches. He bridged the middle innings while LSU’s offense found its footing in the fifth, then handed off to Deven Sheerin, who closed it down with 2.2 innings of one-hit, two-strikeout, scoreless relief.
Curiel, on Guidry: “Gavin Guidry has been here for four years. He closed out the national championship in 2025. He knows what he’s doing up there. He is in full control, and he is a true competitor. He’s probably going to be able to pitch tomorrow if Jay needs him — that’s his type of mentality. He doesn’t care. And this might be his last time playing here at LSU, so he’s going to go ball to wall.”
That’s a senior arm who has been through the Omaha run, doing in May 2026 what he did in June 2025 — long relief at high leverage.
The Sooner errors
Oklahoma helped LSU’s win along with three errors. The biggest contribution came in the fifth, when Camden Johnson’s throwing error at third turned a should-have-been-out into two LSU runs. The fourth inning gave up a run on its own pair of defensive miscues, including a wild pitch on a Tockey strikeout that allowed Brock to score from third, unearned.
The Sooners’ offense never produced an extra-base hit on the night. Six singles total. They drew four walks. With runners in scoring position, they went 0-for-7. Camden Johnson drew a walk and drove in Oklahoma’s lone earned run; Brendan Brock scored Oklahoma’s only other run on the wild-pitch/error sequence.
Skip Johnson’s first SEC Tournament season concluded with a final stat line that won’t get the Sooners into the NCAA Tournament conversation: a one-and-done first-round exit, the inability to capitalize on chances, and a young pitching staff that gave up Milam’s eighth-inning blast.
Curiel’s path to LSU
For Curiel — a California native, a 2023 U-18 USA Baseball World Cup veteran who batted leadoff and played center field for Team USA in Taiwan — the journey to Tuesday’s win started with an older teammate.
