OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Paul Skenes struck out 12 and carried a shutout into the eighth inning before Tennessee broke through, and LSU held on to beat its SEC rival 6-3 in the College World Series on Saturday night.

The big right-hander's fastball touched 100 mph or more 46 times as he ran his season strikeout total to 200, the first college pitcher to reach that mark in 12 years.

“I had all four pitches working,” Skenes said. “I went out there and made pitches and kind of threw what they weren't expecting at times, and it worked pretty well.”

Skenes kept Tennessee batters off-balance by often starting them off with his secondary pitches — changeups, sliders and curves — rather than his devastating fastball. Coach Jay Johnson said pitching coach Wes Johnson adjusted the way he called pitches when they noticed the first few batters sitting on fastballs and making good contact.

"You could tell they were trying to jump him,” Jay Johnson said, adding that batters must make their decision to swing early if they're going to catch up to Skenes' heater.

“If he starts throwing his changeup, there's not much you can do,” he said. “The execution was pretty elite.”

LSU will play Wake Forest on Monday night to determine control of Bracket 2. The Volunteers will meet Stanford in an elimination game Monday.

Brayden Jobert finished a single short of hitting for the cycle for LSU. He doubled in the fourth, tripled in a run in the sixth and homered in the eighth after Tennessee had made it a two-run game.

Gavin Dugas' third homer in four games opened the scoring against Andrew Lindsey (3-4), and the Tigers were up 5-0 after seven innings.

The Vols made a game of it after Christian Scott doubled for Tennessee's first extra-base hit with one out in the eighth. Maui Ahuna's RBI single knocked Skenes (13-2) out of the game, and Hunter Ensley homered on Gavin Guidry's only pitch to cut it the lead to 5-3.

Riley Cooper struck out Christian Moore to end the eighth, and after an error and balk in the ninth, he caught Scott's soft liner to finish the game.

LSU won two of three against the Vols in Baton Rouge early in the season. Skenes was a 5-2 winner in the opener of that series, striking out 12 and allowing one run in seven innings.

This matchup commanded up to $500 for a prime seat on the secondary market at midweek, and Skenes was the main attraction through seven innings for the crowd of more than 25,000. Projected to be picked second overall behind teammate Dylan Crews in the amateur draft next month, Skenes recorded double-digit strikeouts for the 14th time in 18 starts.

“He has an unreal arm,” the Vols' Hunter Ensley said. “All the pregame work was good building up to the game. I thought we had a lot of good at-bats, quality at-bats. Good fight in the box, but just not able to get it done.”

Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said he had never seen Skenes so sharp working over batters with a combination of pitches.

“He was effective with his whole arsenal,” Vitello said. “There was a heavier mix, I think, than we expected. I think our guys recognized it right away, but easier said than done adjusting on the fly in that situation.”

The atmosphere added adrenaline. Though Skenes said he's accustomed to pitching in front of big crowds at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, the setting at Charles Schwab Field was next level.

“It was awesome,” he said, “and I’ll need a little time to internalize that and take it all in."

If Skenes pitches again at the CWS, he will have a good chance to break the SEC single-season strikeout record of 202 by ex-LSU star Ben McDonald in 1989. As it is, Skenes has the most strikeouts since Trevor Bauer had 203 for UCLA in 2011.

Florida comes from behind to beat Virginia 6-5 in the College World Series

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Jac Caglianone scored the winning run on Luke Heyman's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth inning after Ty Evans and Wyatt Langford homered to tie it, and Florida rallied to beat Virginia 6-5 in the College World Series on Friday night.

The Gators' 21st come-from-behind win of the season, and fourth walk-off, sends them to a Sunday night game against Oral Roberts for control of their bracket. Virginia, which lost for the first time in 94 games when leading after eight innings, will play TCU in an elimination game in the afternoon.

Virginia (50-14) scored four times in the seventh to take a three-run lead in front of a crowd of nearly 25,000 that included Pro Football Hall of Famer Peyton Manning.

The Gators (51-15) got one back in the bottom of the seventh and another in the eighth on BT Riopelle's homer. Harrison Didawick's RBI triple put the Cavaliers up two runs in the ninth before Florida turned on the power against reliever Jake Berry (0-5) in the bottom half.

“It’s kind of the makeup of our team,” Langford said. “We’ve proved it many times throughout the year that we’re able to come back in these games and we’re never out of a baseball game.”

Evans and Langford homered to tie it at 5, with Langford’s traveling 456 feet onto the walkway behind left field. Then, the Gators loaded the bases on a single, walk and hit batter.

“I have zero regret,” Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. “Jake Berry has done the job for this team all year long. He’s been tremendous when we’ve had a lead and closed games out for us. They did a terrific job against him and got his pitch count up and executed very, very well.”

Jay Woolfolk took over for Berry, and Heyman sent a fly deep enough to center to allow Caglianone to score easily from third.

“The home run by Ty, I think that really gave the dugout a lot of momentum,” Gators coach Kevin O'Sullivan said. “We were down to one out and still down a run. But we knew we had Wyatt and Cags and the rest of the guys coming up behind them.”

Evans hadn't played since June 4 and entered Friday's game in the seventh as a pinch hitter.

“You have to have special performances from people you don’t expect,” O'Sullivan said. “It happens all the time in any sport. You’re not always going to get the best performances from your best players, so other people have to pick them up. It just worked out the way it did tonight.”

Brandon Neely (1-2) pitched 2 1/3 innings of relief for the win.

Florida starter Brandon Sproat worked six shutout innings against a Virginia offense that arrived in Omaha with the nation’s highest batting average (.335) and averaging 9.1 runs per game.

Anthony Stephens’ RBI groundout started a four-run seventh for the Cavaliers and ended Florida’s streak of 15 consecutive shutout innings. Griff O’Ferrall delivered the tie-breaking double into the left-field corner off reliever Cade Fisher with two outs and Ethan O’Donnell followed with an RBI single.

Nick Parker limited Florida to one run on four hits and three walks in six innings. He held the top four batters in the order hitless, including national home run leader Caglianone.

“This team has bounced back all year long,” O'Ferrall said. “We’re not going to go down without a fight. I think getting back tomorrow in practice and getting our plan ready for Sunday, I think we’ll be good to go.”

Blaze Brothers' 3-run homer in the 9th gives Oral Roberts a 6-5 win in the College World Series

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Blaze Brothers hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the ninth inning after an Oral Roberts pitching meltdown in the eighth, and the Golden Eagles continued their surprising postseason run with a 6-5 victory over TCU on Friday in the opening game of the College World Series.

The Eagles, the lowest seed to make it to Omaha since 2012, had just gone down three runs before they jumped on Luke Savage for four in the ninth. Drew Stahl's RBI single pulled ORU within 5-3, and then Brothers drove an 0-1 pitch out to left for his first homer since May 24.

“It was like slow motion,” Brothers said. “Right when I felt it off the bat it felt pretty good, and I saw the left fielder kind of turn around, and I was, like, ‘Oh, that ball’s out. Lets go.’ I just wanted to get around the bases to celebrate with the boys."

Oral Roberts is in the CWS for the first time in 45 years, and except for the rocky eighth inning, the upstart challengers from the Summit League showed no sign of wilting on college baseball's biggest stage while winning for the 24th time in 25 games.

The Eagles' Jonah Cox went 0 for 5, ending a 47-game hitting streak that was tied for third-longest in Division I history.

ORU (52-12) will play Florida on Sunday night. TCU (42-23), which lost for the first time in 12 games, will play Virginia in an elimination game Sunday afternoon.

“You've just got to give credit to Oral Roberts where credit’s due,” TCU coach Kirk Saarloos said. “They’ve done it — I watched them in the postseason. They’ve come back. They’re a resilient bunch, an old group. And they put a great swing on the ball in the ninth. But I wouldn’t change anything. I thought our guys played with great effort, great grit. It just stinks sometimes somebody’s got to lose a game like that.”

Among the Eagles' supporters at Charles Schwab Field were members of their 1978 CWS team and Mike Moore, who pitched 14 years in the major leagues after being the No. 1 overall pick in the 1981 amateur draft.

“They just tell us to keep going,” ORU's Justin Quinn said. “What we’re doing is pretty special, and they enjoy watching it and we enjoy doing it. As long as we keep confidence up and keep going I think we can get it done.”

The celebratory mood in ORU's dugout following Brothers' homer turned to anxiety when TCU had runners on first and second with one out in the bottom of the ninth against Cade Denton.

Denton (3-1) got Karson Bowen to chase a pitch outside the zone for the second out to set up a showdown between the National Stopper of the Year and Brayden Taylor, the Frogs' biggest offensive threat. Taylor lined out to left to end the game, and Denton got a bit of redemption after his horrendous eighth inning.

“I’m sitting in the dugout watching our guys go out and put four up on the board, and obviously I came into the dugout thinking I needed to go back out and get the job done if we get the lead here,” Denton said. “After that first inning, lacking a little confidence, Blaze’s home run definitely instilled that confidence in me.”

ORU coach Ryan Folmar called on Denton with runners on first and second and one out. Denton's first pitch was wild, allowing both runners to move up, and Taylor was then intentionally walked to load the bases and set up forces all around.

Denton then walked in the go-ahead run and hit Tre Richardson to bring in another before Kurtis Byrne's sacrifice fly made it a three-run game.

TCU's Cole Fontenelle, the Most Outstanding Player of the super regional against Indiana State, opened the scoring with a home run in the fourth and added an RBI single in the sixth.

Mac McCroskey's two-run homer accounted for the Eagles' only scoring until the ninth against Savage (5-4).

“Obviously we’ve been through worse than this,” Fontenelle said. “We’ve been to a point where we didn’t think we were going to make a regional. We don’t really need to change anything. We’re going to come back and we’re going to be good.”

College World Series' slugging squads know the long ball only goes so far in Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The batting statistics for the eight College World Series teams suggest there will be home runs aplenty at Charles Schwab Field over the next 10 days.

Five of the top 10 home run-hitting squads are in Omaha, and so are individual national leaders Jac Caglianone of Florida and Wake Forest’s Brock Wilken.

“Balls were flying today,” Florida shortstop Josh Rivera said Thursday after batting practice. “We had Jac Caglianone hitting balls out of the stadium. It was really cool. All of us from a BP standpoint, we were seeing the balls fly.”

Conditions were favorable during the teams' practice day with a light wind blowing out to left. The forecast calls for the wind to blow in from center when the CWS opens Friday.

“It was flying out to all parts of the field,” Tennessee's Jared Dickey said. “We have some strong guys. If it plays like it did today, I think we're in a good spot.”

Experience has taught TCU coach Kirk Saarloos it takes more than the ability to hit the long ball for a team to leave Omaha with a championship.

Saarloos pitched in two College World Series at hitter-friendly Rosenblatt Stadium, and he was a TCU assistant when the Horned Frogs played at Schwab during the college game's dead ball period of the early 2010s.

“You're going to face the best of the best on the mound,” he said. “So you can’t sit there and think that you’re going to get your three-run home runs. You’re going to have to run the bases and be aggressive and steal bases, maybe use the bunt game.”

The CWS features four pitchers projected to be first-round draft picks next month in LSU's Paul Skenes, Tennessee's Chase Dollander, Wake Forest's Rhett Lowder and Florida's Hurston Waldrep.

“It gets tougher and tougher as you move on in the tournament because you are facing the best of the best pitching staffs,” said Stanford coach David Esquer, whose team has had back-to-back 100-homer seasons. “We know that good pitching can stop good hitting a lot of times.”

TCU (42-22) begins bracket play Friday against Oral Roberts (51-12), the first No. 4 regional seed since Stony Brook in 2012 to make the final eight of the NCAA Tournament. No. 2 national seed Florida (50-15) meets No. 7 Virginia (50-13) on Friday night.

Saturday's games match No. 1 Wake Forest (52-10) against No. 8 Stanford (44-18) and No. 5 LSU (48-15) against Southeastern Conference rival Tennessee (43-20).

LSU's home run production has been reminiscent of the prodigious numbers put up by Skip Bertman's teams of the 1990s. The Tigers' 133 homers are third most in program history and most for a team entering a CWS since the Tigers arrived in Omaha with 148 in 1998.

“This is the ‘Gorilla Ball’ program,” coach Jay Johnson said. “I think about the teams that achieved those (numbers) that maybe this team is close to. Those are college baseball legends.”

Florida and Wake Forest has 129 homers each, Tennessee has 125 and Stanford has 117. Florida's Caglianone has 31 and the Demon Deacons’ Wilkens has 30.

There have been 28 homers hit each of the last two years at the CWS, the most since Schwab opened in 2011.

Wake Forest hit 19 homers in regionals and super regionals, led by Danny Corona's six. Deacons coach Tom Walter said he doesn't expect his team to rely on the home run here.

“I thought it carried a little better than I expected it to today,” Walter said, “but we still have to, in general, live lower than we’ve been living. We certainly can’t expect some of the home runs we’ve hit at our ballpark or other ballparks in the ACC. We definitely have to lower our ball flight."

Virginia comes in with the fewest homers (82), but it leads the nation in doubles (169) and batting average (.335). Coach Brian O’Connor said the expansive outfield could play to his team’s advantage.

“I think the key is to stay in the gaps. It really is,” O'Connor said. “Somebody told me this morning, and I didn’t even realize it, that we were leading the country in doubles. That’s a pretty important stat, I believe, in this ballpark."

Stanford's Quinn Mathews shakes off critics of his 156-pitch outing in super regional game

Thanks for your concern.

That was Quinn Mathews' message Thursday to people who criticized Stanford coach David Esquer for allowing him to throw a career-high 156 pitches in a super regional game against Texas.

Mathews went out for the ninth inning even though his team had a five-run lead in what turned out to be an 8-3 win Sunday. The senior left-hander was lauded for his toughness in some quarters.

In others, Esquer was called abusive for putting so much wear on Mathews' arm and potentially jeopardizing his pro career.

Pitch counts for all teams are not available, but Mathews' outing surely was one of the longest, if not the longest, in the nation this year. Only two pitchers in the major leagues have thrown 150 pitches in a game since 2000.

Mathews said he was drained mentally more than physically after his most recent outing, and he is the probable starter for his team's College World Series opener against Wake Forest on Saturday.

Mathews said he has prepared himself through training to handle extreme workloads. He has thrown more than 100 pitches in 16 of his 17 starts.

“To the critics out there, I’m just appreciative of them, honestly, that they’re willing to put the time and energy to write stuff about me and talk about me and do all that,” he said with a straight face. “I’m blessed that they care about my well-being and my health.”

Esquer said he let Mathews run up a high pitch count because he wasn't taxing himself and athletic trainers and strength coaches were on board with letting him continue.

“He is not cranking off 75% sliders or breaking pitches. He is throwing maybe 80 change-ups during the game, right?” Esquer said. “I thought between the change and the fastball that his stress pitches were down.”

Mathews was drafted in the 19th round last year and decided to return to school to help the Cardinal get back to the CWS.

Given Mathews' resilience, and his desire to have the ball with the season on the line, Esquer said he couldn't deny him the opportunity to finish.

“You struggle with yourself whether to give him that opportunity or not,” Esquer said. “Again, with his safety in mind, it seemed like the right thing to do for him.”

SKENES WINS HOWSER TROPHY

LSU's Paul Skenes, projected to be the first or second pick in the amateur draft next month, on Thursday was the winner of the Dick Howser Trophy as the nation's outstanding college baseball player.

The junior right-hander leads the nation in strikeouts (188) and the Southeastern Conference in wins (12), ERA (1.77), innings pitched (107) and opponent batting average (.170). He will go into the College World Series within 14 strikeouts of Ben McDonald's SEC-record 202 for LSU in 1989.

Skenes is the second LSU player to win the Howser. Eddy Furniss was the first in 1998.

The award is presented annually by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and is named for Dick Howser, an All-America shortstop and coach at Florida State and major league player and manager.

ORAL ROBERTS LOCAL FAVORITE

Omahans traditionally adopt a team to root for, and Oral Roberts undoubtedly will be it. The Golden Eagles, on paper, are underdogs because they've made it this far as a No. 4 regional seed. They also play in the Summit League and make annual visits to play the Omaha Mavericks.

This actually is their third trip to Omaha this year. They also played a series against North Dakota State in neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa, because of poor field conditions in Fargo.

“We’ve been here before,” first baseman Jake McMurray said. “Not necessarily at this stage, but we feel comfortable here. Just the city has been embracing us a lot. On the way to dinner last night we had a lot of people come up to us and say, ‘We’re rooting for you, you guys can do this.’ The city has been great, and I think our guys are comfortable here.”

DAY JOB CAN WAIT

Florida catcher BT Riopelle has hit 31 homers, driven in 120 runs and was first-team All-SEC in 2022. Chances are he would have had an opportunity to play professionally after this season. Thing is, he doesn't want to.

Riopelle announced in February he would take a job at a firm in the financial sector once the Gators' season ends. He hopes that is the last week in June, in the championship series. He said he knows his future co-workers will be watching.

“They’re super excited," Riopelle said, "and I’m very happy to be joining them in a month. Not too soon, though.”