Lsu Hammers Stanford

College World Series

Stanford All-American Kyle Peterson said it didn’t matter what he threw. LSU’s hard-hitting Tigers put a good bruise on all his pitches.

Defending champion LSU hit a record-tying five homers, including two by Brandon Larson, and spoiled the homecoming of Peterson with a 10-5 victory Sunday in the College World Series.

“They hit good ones and they hit bad ones,” Peterson said. “The curveball I threw Larson I thought was a good one and he almost hit the lights.”

Clint Earnhart’s two-run homer in the fourth and back-to-back solo shots by Larson and Eddy Furniss in the fifth helped the second-seeded Tigers take a 7-0 lead.

Larson’s second homer of the game and third of the CWS came with nobody on in the seventh. Larson has 40 homers this season, one fewer than national leader Lance Berkman of Rice.

“Watching Brandon play has been a real highlight for me,” LSU coach Skip Bertman said. “It’s the kind of impossible dream season (Boston triple-crown winner Carl) Yastrezmski had in 1967. I think Brandon’s had the finest year I’ve ever seen in my coaching.”

Larson’s three RBIs in the game gave him 115, a school and Southeastern Conference record, and his three hits improved his team-leading average to .383.

The victory gave LSU (55-13) two days off, while third-seeded Stanford (44-19) heads to the elimination round Tuesday to meet sixth-seeded Auburn (50-16). Tuesday’s winner meets LSU on Wednesday night.

In Sunday’s late game, Tim Hudson drove in six runs and pitched 6-1/3 innings of four-hit ball to lead Auburn to a 10-1 win over Rice in an elimination game that sent the 7th-seeded Owls (47-16) home winless in their first CWS appearance.

“I thought Auburn played a great game. Great hitting, great pitching, great fielding,” Rice coach Wayne Graham said. “You can’t hardly play a better game than they did.”

For Auburn, it was the first victory in three trips to Omaha since going 2-2 in the 1967 tournament.