BATON ROUGE -- Jared Mitchell is flying in rarefied air these days.

The former Westgate High School standout quarterback and center fielder has the chance to do what few others have done as his LSU baseball team seeks to extend its school and conference record 23-game win streak.

Mitchell was a receiver for the 2007 BCS champion LSU football team in the fall, and has a chance to add a baseball team championship in the same school year if the Tigers continue their roll through this weekend’s Super Regional at Alex Box Stadium and into the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

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“The chance to win two championships is not unheard of,” said Mitchell prior to practice Wednesday. “But to have that chance right now is definitely a blessing in the making.”

Mitchell said that it would not be fair to say he foresaw this kind of success when he signed with LSU on a football scholarship, passing on a chance to sign a pro baseball contract after being drafted in the 10th round by the Minnesota Twins in 2006.

“It was definitely something I hoped for,” Mitchell said. “Pretty much the (sport) I’m participating in at the time (is the one I prefer). It’s really hard to say. When I’m in season, I get caught up in the success of the team. I’ve really enjoyed both.”

Right now, he’s playing his part in the baseball team’s success. After the Tigers went 29-16-1 last season and started this season off at 23-16-1 overall and only 6-11-1 in the Southeastern Conference �” 11th best of 12 SEC teams �” the Tigers have not lost since April 19.

“It means a lot, being ninth or 10th last year, to this year having a top recruiting class, then not playing well at the start and having everyone doubt us,” said Mitchell. “We just didn’t lose our confidence.”

LSU improved to 46-16-1 with its three-game sweep of regional foes last weekend and has risen as high as No. 2 in one of the three major college baseball polls, the Collegiate Baseball Top 25. The Tigers are seeded seventh nationally by the NCAA and play host to UC Irvine this weekend in a best-of-three Super Regional series that starts Saturday at 5 p.m. The first game will be telecast on ESPNU and Sunday’s second game at 3 p.m. will be on ESPN.

“The guys are confident,” said Mitchell, “knowing we have talent and it’s going to come around. We knew if we kept playing we were going to have success, and things are working out for us.”

While everyone on the team is aware of the streak, there has been no pressure to win for the sake of the streak, Mitchell added. The team first had to win just to stay alive in the hunt �” first for a spot in the SEC Tournament, then for further goals like a spot in an NCAA regional, a conference tournament title, and a host position in the regionals and super regionals.

“To us the streak just goes with what we’ve been doing. Every game since Auburn we’ve been playing for a championship,” he said. “We put ourselves in a situation where we were in a hole at 6-11-1, and with the teams we were playing, we knew we had to keep winning.”

The win streak started with a victory over Tulane, one of 11 teams on the LSU schedule earning a bid to the NCAA regionals, and included sweeps of conference foes South Carolina (ranked No. 12 at the time), Kentucky, Mississippi State and Auburn to close out the regular season. LSU also beat UNO, another regional team, in that span.

While LSU, and Mitchell himself, have struggled at times, they’ve fought through to put themselves in position to return to the College World Series at Rosenblatt Stadium for the first time since 2004 and win their sixth CWS title, the last coming in 2000.

“Every player struggles and every team struggles at some point. You just try to keep a positive attitude to get to where you want to be,” said Mitchell.

The sophomore outfielder, who has been batting second and playing left field, sees his role as getting on base and being a threat to steal, helping set up power hitters like Blake Dean (.351, 19 homers, 66 RBIs) and Matt Clark (.340, 25 HRs, 58 RBIs). Mitchell is hitting .295 and has started 36 of the 46 games he’s appeared in, stealing 13 of 15 bases he’s attempted and scoring 38 runs this season.

“My job is just to come out here and get on base a lot, try to be a catalyst,” said Mitchell. “When I get on base in front of (Dean and Clark), they get more fastballs. People don’t want me running on them.”

The Tigers face a team this weekend that is radically different in its approach to the game. The Anteaters take a “station-to-station” type approach, using the bunt and hit-and-run to advance runners into scoring position.

“That puts pressure on you,” said Mitchell. “At the same time, if we get a big inning here or there, it’s going to put pressure on them.

“Even when (Dean and Clark) are not hitting the ball out of the park, like they were Sunday, we’ve got a real strong, balanced team, and people like Leon Landry can hit them out.

“I guess that with anything, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. With any sport, especially baseball, you want to be peaking at the end of the year. That’s what this team is doing.”