Carson leads LSU to title: ‘I wanted to do anything my team needed’

BY PETER RAUTERKUS @peter_rauterkus

Big time players make big time plays in big time games.

That phrase is used almost ad nauseam when talking about big performances in championship games. But sometimes, it’s the players not often in the spotlight that make the difference.

That was the case for LSU on Sunday.

Jasmine Carson, who hadn’t scored a point since the second round of the tournament, was that player for LSU.

She scored 22 points, 21 of which coming in the first half. That performance led LSU to a 17-point lead and 59 first half points, the most in national championship history.

Though she only scored one point the rest of the game, her impact was the driving force of LSU having one of its best offensive games of the season.

Coming into this game, LSU had been struggling from the perimeter. The Tigers made just 14 three-pointers all tournament to that point, but made 11 in the championship game.

Carson had five of those makes.

“I wanted to do anything that my team needed in this game,” Carson said. “Whether it was defense, rebounding, just anything supporting them.”

To say Carson merely supported her team in the win is an understatement. Twenty-two was her second-highest point total of the season, and she picked the best possible time to have one of the best games of her career.

Carson’s role this season has fluctuated, along with her suc-

HISTORY, from page 9 starter in guard Alexis Morris, which made up its top-six players in terms of minutes per game this season.

Fans didn’t know it at the time, but her acquisitions from both the transfer portal and 2022 recruiting class would take this team to unexplored heights. In what would have been a rebuilding season with an average coach, the Tigers would once again sport championship aspirations.

Its 23 straight wins to open the season perfectly coincided with sophomore Angel Reese’s record-breaking streak of 23 double-doubles, a span of which they beat their opponents by an average of over 31 points. But even as the Tigers finished the

SERIES, from page 9

The Volunteer offense combined for 17 hits that translated into 14 runs. The pitching duo of sophomore right-hander, starter Drew Beam and senior righthander Camden Sewell, who was credited with the win, threw 121 total pitches combined. Tennessee had seven strikeouts and allowed 11 hits but the Tigers were only able to turn that into seven runs.

The scoreboard read 10-6 through the first five innings of play and both teams had 10 hits. Tennessee had three errors and LSU had one at the time. Neither team had an error through the final four innings.

The Volunteer offense was led by the trio of sophomore first baseman Blake Burke, sophomore catcher Jared Dickey and junior leftfielder Kyle Booker. They each had three hits and combined to score four runs.

“You tip your hat to Tennessee today; we saw another really regular season with one loss, there were still doubts.

For one, the SEC wasn’t the strongest conference, as despite having seven teams in the tournament, just four of those were seeded No. 8 and below. Considering LSU’s lone matchup against No. 1 South Carolina was a blowout loss and its most considerable win came against No. 4 seeded Tennessee, the doubt wasn’t entirely unreasonable, though it did disregard the fact that the Tigers managed an absurd 27-1 regular-season record.

A blown lead in their SEC semifinal matchup against Tennessee dropped it to a No. 3 seed for a second straight season but despite the parallels to last season, this time they prevailed. The Tigers presented little worry against No. 14 seeded Hawai’i good pitcher on the mound and their offense is explosive,” said LSU coach Jay Johnson. “Our players know the things we need to do better that we did not do well today. We’ll work on those and move forward.” and even when they drew another No. 6 seed from the Big 10 in Michigan, LSU blew through its competition with a 24-point win.

LSU’s offense was led by junior centerfielder Dylan Crews and junior leftfielder Tre’ Morgan. Crews went 4 for 4 at the plate with three RBIs and extended his hit streak to 26 games. Morgan got on base in half of his at-bats, scored twice and had two RBIs.

The final score of 14-7 in game three legitimizes Tennessee as a national championship contender and shows the rest of the NCAA how good the SEC is.

LSU falls to 24-4 on the season and 6-3 in SEC play. Tennessee improves to 21-8 and 4-5 in conference play.

LSU baseball will be back at Alex Box Stadium on Tuesday night for a matchup with in-state rival Nicholls State at 6:30 p.m. CT.

It stumbled a bit on its way to its first Final Four appearance since 2008, needing a small amount of luck to advance past No. 2 seeded Utah and struggling to score against No. 9 seeded Miami, but it got the job done in each of those and put itself in position to make program history.

After five straight seasons from 2003 to 2008 where it made it to the Final Four and failed to advance, Mulkey and this Tiger squad made history, not only making it to its first ever championship but winning it in electric fashion.

It did so thanks to an improbable nine-point comeback against No. 1 seeded Virginia Tech and a historic offensive performance in the title game against No. 2 seeded Iowa, a game in which it beat the championship record for most points with 102. cess. She spent most of the earlier part of the season as a starter, but her minutes went down in the postseason.

In just two seasons with the program, Mulkey turned a program that hadn’t advanced past the Final Four in its history or won a tournament game since 2014 into a champion, a feat not many coaches in college sports history have accomplished. The best comparison I could come up with was Nick Saban, who won a national championship in just his third season with Alabama.

Being that Saban is considered by most to be the best coach in college football history, that says a lot about the legacy of Mulkey.

“Jasmine wasn’t benched for any reason other than I needed bigger bodies for some of the teams we played in the playoffs,” Mulkey said. “Jasmine may be the second-best pure shooter that I’ve ever coached in my career. She can just light it up.”

She averaged just 10.8 minutes per game in the NCAA Tournament leading up to the national championship. With that came lesser numbers, only reaching double figures in one game during March Madness.

Given LSU’s recent run, though, many called for efficient three-point shooting being key for LSU. The Tigers had been dominant on defense and on the glass, but were struggling to hit that final gear from the perimeter.

Against Iowa, the biggest key was keeping up with Iowa’s highscoring offense. Iowa made 14 three-pointers in the game, but even still, that wasn’t enough to keep up with LSU.

LSU’s 102 points set a national championship game record. Carson added 22 of those and also helped LSU gain momentum as a team from three-point range.

The Tigers shot a scoring 9 of 12 from beyond the arc in the first half, which set the tone for an offense that continued to build confidence.

That confidence and momentum never ceased, and ultimately led to LSU’s first national championship in school history.

And for Carson, a two-time transfer, she experienced the moment most players merely dream of. She holds the claim of a national championship standout and unlikely hero on the biggest stage in the sport.

“It was a surreal moment, every player dreams of being on the big stage like this and having the game of your life,” Carson said. “I was just living in the moment.”