How did LSU become national champions?

Eyanson (12-2) worked 6.1 innings and limited the Chanticleers to three runs on seven hits with one walk and nine strikeouts, firing 99 pitches.

“There's one player every summer in this crazy new recruiting world that we're living in that you know it's going to tip the scales for you to have an opportunity to be here and do what we just accomplished, and that player was Anthony Eyanson.”

CCU starter Jacob Morrison (12-1) was charged with the loss, as he allowed five runs on six hits with 3.2 innings with one walk and two strikeouts.

The Chanticleers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning when designated hitter Dean Mihos unloaded his third homer of the year.

LSU tied the game in the top of the third when designated hitter Ethan Frey ripped an RBI double, scoring second baseman Daniel Dickinson, who had led off the inning with a single.

The Tigers erupted for four runs in the fourth inning as centerfielder Chris Stanfield and leftfielder Derek Curiel each delivered two-run singles to highlight the outburst.

Coastal Carolina narrowed the gap to 5-3 in the seventh against Eyanson when centerfielder Wells Sykes hit a two-run homer, his fourth dinger of the season.

Shores, however, entered the game and retired the next two hitters in the seventh. He fired two more scoreless innings to earn his second save of the year, allowing just one hit with no walks and four strikeouts.

Mihos led off the CCU ninth with a single, but Shores struck out shortstop Ty Dooley and forced Sykes to ground into a 4-6-3 double play to end the game.

“Chase Shores, I'm so proud of him,” Johnson said. “I mean, he was a weekend starter on the 2023 national championship team as a freshman before he was injured. And then he had to go through the 18-month recovery rehab and persevered through all of that.

"And there's nobody I would have rather had finish the game tonight for the second national championship than Chase Shores.”