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June 24, 2009

Texas evens series with LSU

OMAHA, Neb. Ñ Freshman Taylor Jungmann limited LSU to five hits in his first complete game, and Russell Moldenhauer hit his record-tying fourth home run of the College World Series as Texas evened the best-of-three finals, 5-1 over LSU on Tuesday night.

The top-seeded Longhorns (50-15-1) forced a winner-take-all game Wednesday night for the national championship. LSU (55-17), ranked No. 1 in the major polls, lost for the first time in 15 games.

Jungmann, who threw six pitches all for balls in a short relief appearance in Game 1 Monday, struck out nine against an LSU offense that averaged 9.5 runs in its first four CWS games.

Jungmann (11-3) won his third game in Omaha Ñ the other two were in relief Ñ and he pitched the first complete game in the CWS since 2006.

LSU starter Aaron Ross (6-8) lasted only two innings in his first CWS start.

Preston Clark homered for a 2-0 lead in the second and finished with three hits and two RBIs.

Moldenhauer's surprising show of power continued. He came to Omaha with no home runs this season and became the 10th player to hit four in a CWS when he sent a high fly over the right-center field fence off Ryan Byrd in the third.

Jungmann had never pitched more than 7 2-3 innings. He gave up a triple to DJ LeMahieu leading off the third in addition to four singles.

LSU scored on shortstop Brandon Loy's fielding error in the second. The Tigers got the leadoff man on base to start four innings after that, but couldn't score.

LeMahieu tripled into the right-field corner to start the third, and Jungmann walked Blake Dean with one out. Jungmann struck out Micah Gibbs and got Mike Mahtook to ground out.

Jungmann got a big defensive play from second baseman Travis Tucker with a runner on first base in the fourth. Tucker went into the hole to backhand Derek Helenihi's grounder up the middle, underhanded the ball to Loy, who made the throw to first to complete the inning-ending double play.

In the sixth, Dean reached on an infield single and took another base when Tucker let the ball get past him as he backed up first. But Dean left second base too early on Gibbs' fly to center and, as he was standing on third, was called out when Jungmann threw back to Tucker at second.

The Longhorns scored all five runs in the first three innings and mustered only four singles the rest of the way.

LSU left fielder Leon Landry robbed Kevin Keyes of extra bases in the fifth, his body going parallel to the ground as he laid out to snag Keyes' drive into the corner.

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