LSU defeats Oregon State, advances to world series finals

Caleb Gilbert held No. 1 national seed Oregon State to two hits in 7 1/3 innings, Michael Papierski homered from both sides of the plate and LSU beat the Beavers 6-1 on Saturday to reach the College World Series finals.

The Tigers (52-18) won their third straight elimination game, including back to-back victories over Oregon State. The Beavers (56-6) had a pair of 23- game winningstreak sand finished the season with a .903 winning percentage the best since Texas’ mark of .908 in 1982.

The Tigers beat the Beavers 3-1 on Friday to force the second game.

Gilbert allowed an infield single and walk before Michael Gretler homered in the seventh. He struck out a career-highseven in his longest outing in his two seasons at LSU. Zack Hess allowed one hit the rest of the way.

Papierski became the first player to homer twice in a CWS game since TCU’s Bryan Holaday in 2010. He went deep from the left side off Bryce Fehmel in the second and the right side off Brandon E is er tin the fourth.

The Beavers managed only a season-low two hits on Friday and the three against Gilbert and Hess on Saturday. They went the first 17 innings Friday and Saturday without having a leadoff batter reach base.

Before Saturday, Oregon State hadn’t lost consecutive games since a fivegame losing streak from May 6-13, 2016, and hadn’t been shut out since April 30, 2016. Fourth-seeded LSU bounced back from a 13-1 loss to Oregon State on Monday and reached the championship round for the first time since winning the national title in 2009. The Tigers will open the best-of-three finals Monday against the winner of the Florida-TCU game Saturday night.