LSU baseball infielder Steven Milam was fantastic throughout the large part of the 2024 college baseball season. With that said, it didn’t come close to what he’s done over the last few days and it’s become abundantly clear that coach Jay Johnson has found himself a star in the talented freshman.
LSU baseball freshman infielder Steven Milam continues to dominate the postseason
“Steven [Milam], another clutch performance. Those two home runs really stand out, but he took four great at bats today,” coach Jay Johnson said following today’s 2024 NCAA Tournament victory over Wofford.
After little to no offense from LSU baseball for the large part of this afternoon’s matchup between the Tigers and the Terriers, things were starting look grim, as the purple and gold trailed their opponent 2-0 entering the bottom of the 7th inning. With that said, with just one swing of the bat, infielder Steven Milam put his team on the board, and there was an immediate shift in momentum.
From there, LSU would go on to hit three additional home runs, highlighted by a second from the talented freshman in walk-off fashion, as he recorded his third in as many games. With that said, while the two home runs would typically be enough to impress the average fan, the 5-foot-8 Milam decided that wasn’t enough, hitting his home runs from opposite sides of the plate, tallying both a right-handed and left-handed bomb to help push the Tigers over the top to eventually come away with a 4-3 victory.
When asked about his switch hitting prowess and his experience hitting home runs from either side in just one game, the Las Cruces, NM product couldn’t help but laugh while reflecting on the incredible feat.
“In high school I have – not in college,” Milam started. “And I didn’t plan to, but it happened and that’s just really exciting for our team to win the game.”
With his stellar performance this afternoon, the freshman infielder has put together quite the postseason resume, recording 12 hits, nine RBIs and four home runs and two walk-off hits since the start of the 2024 SEC Tournament.
For context, Milam has officially doubled his home run total on the season, showing just how good he’s been of late, which just so happens to be the perfect opportunity for the purple and gold to continue their run towards Omaha and the College Baseball World Series.
“He’s not a freshman anymore,” coach Johnson continued while speaking about his impressive first-year infielder. “When you go through what we went through and you play the teams that we played, there’s nothing that we have not seen. And then you draw confidence from that, and they’ve had enough success – I mean that’s the 41st win of the year – to believe in themselves. And they just needed to believe in themselves.
“As Steven said, just slow down, stay in our plan and we were going to be okay. I mean I literally said that like five times, and they were, and I believed it and they showed you that they were.”
As fun as today was, the season is nowhere near over for Steven Milam and LSU baseball, so it’s important that they have a short memory, but continue to fight for each win as though their 2024 season depends on it – because it does.
The Tigers will next take the field tomorrow, Saturday, June 1 at 4:00 p.m. CST to face off against the winner of Long Island (33-23) vs. No. 4 North Carolina (42-13), which will take place later this evening. The game will once again be played in Chapel Hill, NC in Bryson Field at Boshamer Stadium and will be available to watch live on ESPN+.
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