BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Paul Mainieri, who directed the LSU Tigers to their first national title since 2000 in his third season, has been named Baseball America's Coach of the Year.

Late last week, Mainieri earned Collegiate Baseball's Coach of the Year honor.

LSU knocked off No. 1 national seed Texas in the CWS championship round, completing a 2-1 series victory with Wednesday's 11-4 decision.

LSU finished 56-17, one win short of the 1997 team's school record.

Looking forward to next year, the LSU baseball team hadn't even left Omaha before people started telling the Tigers that they expect to see them back in Omaha playing for another national championship next year.

Coach Paul Mainieri wouldn't want it any other way.

"I sure hope so," he said. "One of the things I've always prided myself in as a coach is having a really good program," one that doesn't seesaw up and down year to year.

"I never wanted to have that anywhere I've coached, and especially now at LSU," he said.

LSU expects to return at least 10 major contributors who were freshmen or sophomores on the 56-17 squad that won the Southeastern Conference regular-season and tournament titles and swept through its NCAA regional and super regional.

Among them are second baseman DJ LeMahieu, center fielder Mikie Mahtook, catcher Micah Gibbs, shortstop Austin Nola, No. 1 pitcher Anthony Ranaudo and closer Matty Ott.

"We've got a good core of kids coming back for next year's team, and if we hold on to some key recruits who were drafted, I don't see why we can't have a very solid team," Mainieri said.

It was like old times for the LSU faithful this year.

Skip Bertman won the school's first five national baseball titles in a span of 10 years (1991-2000), and annual trips to the College World Series have become a ritual for the Tigers' ardent fans.

Hundreds of them showed up at the team hotel after Wednesday night's championship-clinching 11-4 victory over Texas. Mainieri said it took him two hours to make his way through the crowd in the lobby to reach the elevator so he could go to his room.

"The experience of coming back to the Embassy Suites after the game will be a time I'll never forget as long as I live," he said. "These Louisiana people know how to party, I'll tell you that."

Another party was planned Thursday after the team arrived home in Baton Rouge. The Tigers were planning to go directly to Alex Box Stadium.

"That's for all the people who couldn't be here in Omaha," Mainieri said. "It's hard for me to imagine that there are many people left in Baton Rouge with all the purple and gold I've seen in Omaha the past couple weeks."

LSU fans' expectations remain the same even though college baseball has changed since Bertman's squads dominated in the 1990s.

Oregon State in 2006 became the first true Northern school to win the CWS since Ohio State in 1966, and the Beavers repeated in 2007. Fresno State, which plays in the shadows of the Pacific-10 programs and powerful Cal State-Fullerton, last year became the first team to win a national title with more than 23 losses. As a No. 4 regional seed, the Bulldogs' accomplishment was akin to a No. 13 seed or lower winning the NCAA basketball tournament.

This year was more typical, with two traditional Southern programs playing for the title.

But Mainieri said it's getting harder for the longtime powers to stay on top.

"Every year I roll out of bed I'm going to hope our team can make it to Omaha and win when we get there," Mainieri said. "I think it's going to be extremely difficult. Parity in college baseball is so great. So many schools have made the commitment and committed the resources to having a good program. I'm talking facilities, coach's salaries, recruiting budgets."

Bertman, who as athletic director hired Mainieri after the 2006 season, said the 51-year-old coach embraces the unique challenge of coaching at LSU. Other coaches would not be able to take the scrutiny, Bertman said.

"Quite frankly, I don't think you can have all the resources we have available to us and make excuses," he said. "We're in a great conference, it's a great school with great tradition and a winning history. We have super weather, a beautiful facility, the greatest fan base in all the country and tremendous media coverage.

"You can't have all those resources and then say, 'Don't have high expectations for me.' You're speaking with a forked tongue if you say that."

With so much young talent in the program, the pieces are in place to achieve those expectations.

LeMahieu made the All-CWS team, Mahtook delivered the winning hit in the 11th inning in Game 1 and the tie-breaking double in Game 3, and Ott was SEC co-freshman of the year after recording a school-record 16 saves. Ranaudo, a sophomore, pitched only 12 innings in 2008 because of tendinitis, but he threw a 124 this year as the No. 1 starter.

"Any time you have a championship team," Mainieri said, "some guys end up doing a whole lot more than you thought when the season began."

Now the question is whether the Tigers can win it all again.

"If we can do it again, I'd be happy," Mainieri said. "But we're going to enjoy this one for a while before we worry too much about next year."