The drought is over. LSU is going back to the College World Series.

It has been just 6 years since the Tigers’ last appearance in Omaha and only the past 4 CWS have taken place without LSU because the 2020 event was canceled due to COVID-19.

But those streaks are longer than they initially seem when they’re viewed in LSU years.

The 5th-seeded Tigers clinched their 19th trip to Omaha when they finished off a sweep of Kentucky in the Baton Rouge Super Regional 8-3 on Sunday night.

That ended the longest CWS drought for LSU since it made its first trip under Skip Bertman in 1986.

Bertman, who led the Tigers to 5 of their 6 national championships before retiring after the 2001 season, never missed a trip to Omaha in consecutive seasons after that initial trip in ’86.

After that LSU made 9 trips in 20 seasons under Smoke Laval, Paul Mainieri and Jay Johnson. Mainieri’s team won the 2009 title and reached the 2017 final before losing to Florida.

When Johnson was hired to succeed Mainieri after the 2021 season, his mission was to end the drought ASAP and make trips to Omaha more frequently than they had occurred in the post-Bertman era – and preferably as frequently as they had occurred during Bertman’s heyday.

But Johnson’s 1st season was not encouraging.

The raw numbers were a 40-22 overall record and a 17-13 SEC mark. But the Tigers played in a regional away from Alex Box Stadium and despite winning their first 2 games saw their season end after back-to-back losses to host Southern Miss.

But the 2023 season set up to be something special from the beginning. Johnson had a bunch of key players, led by 2022 SEC Player of the Year Dylan Crews.

And through the transfer portal came slugging infielder Tommy White, the 2022 National Freshman of the Year at NC State, and former Air Force right-hander Paul Skenes, the team’s new No. 1 starter.

The roster was one of the most talented in school history and made LSU the consensus preseason No. 1 team in the country. And the Tigers stayed No. 1 for most of the season.

They went 16-1 in their pre-SEC schedule, winning 7 games that were shortened by the 10-run rule and winning 4 others by double-digit runs when the rule wasn’t in effect.

They didn’t lose any of their 1st 5 SEC series even though their opponents were ranked No. 11, No. 6, No. 11, No. 6 and No. 12 when they faced them and LSU started 9-5 in league play.

Then a stretch of mediocrity arrived as the Tigers went 4-5 in their final 3 conference series, which were all against unranked opponents.

They slipped out of the No. 1 spot in early May and were seeded No. 3 in the SEC Tournament before winning their opener and losing their next 2 games.

A series of injuries gutted the bullpen and for a while Johnson had trouble finding reliable pitchers beyond Skenes, Collegiate Baseball’s National Player of the Year.

When the NCAA field was set, it was difficult to predict whether this group was going to conjure up memories of Bertman’s best teams – or disappoint like many of Laval’s, Mainieri’s and Johnson’s 1st team.

But June in Alex Box Stadium, which has often given Saturday night in Tiger Stadium a run for its money, looked the way June in Alex Box Stadium is supposed to look.

LSU swept through the Baton Rouge Regional, riding Skenes to a victory over 4th-seeded Tulane before winning back-to-back games against 2nd-seeded Oregon State, battling through multiple rain delays and a briefly stressful 3-run deficit in the 1st game against the Beavers.

Then came the 1st Super Regional in The Box since 2019.

Skenes was dominant again in Game 1 on Saturday, but no more so than the Tigers’ batters, who hit 6 home runs in a 14-0 victory. That was the most homers hit by LSU in an NCAA Tournament game since the new Box opened in 2009.

Cade Beloso added a home run in Sunday’s victory as the Tigers’ season total reached 132, passing the 1996 national champions’ total for 3rd all-time, behind just the 1997 team (188) and the 1998 team (157).

Meanwhile Ty Guidry allowed 3 solo home runs in 3 1/3 innings, and Riley Cooper and freshman Gavin Guidry combined to pitch 5 2/3 innings of scoreless relief.

So as the star-laden Tigers prepare to return to the CWS, they have a power-hitting lineup that rivals the best of Bertman’s “Gorilla Ball” teams, an ace in Skenes who has had one of the most dominant seasons in school history and a staff behind him that seems to have allayed the late-season concerns.

LSU returns to Omaha looking again like the super team that was the national pace-setter for most of this season – and ready to see how it stacks up against Tigers CWS teams from past seasons.