Jay Johnson on Kade Anderson's performance against Arkansas: 'He's got tremendous stuff'

The opening round of the 2025 Men’s College World Series officially came to an end Saturday night, as LSU held off SEC-foe Arkansas 4-1 to advance to the winner’s bracket. The Tigers are now 4-0 all-time against the Razorbacks in Omaha.

LSU sophomore left-handed pitcher Kade Anderson was lights out on the mound, as he allowed just three hits and one earned run with seven strikeouts over seven innings. He officially passed Tennessee‘s Liam Doyle strikeout total of 164 with his second punch-out of the game, cementing his spot as college baseball’s strikeout king in 2025 (170).

“I take every outing with a grain of salt, just looking to prepare for the next one,” Anderson said postgame. “Obviously you look back a little bit, but every week is different. And kind of how they prepare as well is different. So just continuing to live in the classroom, and that’s the best part of it.”

Arkansas‘ lone run against Anderson was a sixth-inning solo home run belted by first baseman Reese Robinette, just his fifth career home run in 86 at-bats. Other than that one mistake, Anderson channelled his inner Paul Skenes to help the Tigers to get to 1-0 in Omaha.

Jay Johnson raves about his lefty ace

“He’s got tremendous stuff,” head coach Jay Johnson said. “It’s four pitches for strikes. He’s never boxed into having to throw a certain way, which as a hitting coach makes it tough to plan against him because he can always pivot. Kade’s got a plan for any type of hitter, left, right, power, good bat-to-ball type guys, I thought he just executed. He’s such a tremendous competitor. I mean, he got us a win in a super regional game and got us through the seventh inning and was just, for lack of a better word, irritated at his performance. Those guys are special.”

“They don’t come along very often. When you put that four-pitch mix with that type of competitive fire, feel for what he needed to do, like he said, live in the classroom, he’s right back to it. Coach [Nate] Yeskie and him did a great job of making sure he was ready for today.”

Although he threw 100 pitches Saturday night, MLB.com’s No. 7 ranked Draft prospect hinted that we may not have seen the last of him in Omaha.

“Yeah, I completely expect to pitch,” Anderson said. “Obviously that’s not really up to me; it’s up to Coach. But I want to pitch again. And this is a really cool moment for our team and we’ll be ready to go.”

The LSU Tigers will be back in action on Monday night against UCLA, who defeated Murray State 6-4 Saturday afternoon. That game is scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm CT/7:00 pm ET.