BATON ROUGE — First-year head softball coach Yvette Girouard addressed the media on Softball Media Day on Tuesday afternoon at the LSU Athletic Administration Building.
“There is going to be some adjustment at the beginning like we keep talking about, but again time is on our side. We all know that in these two games it is not where you start, but where you finish. We would like to finish a bit different than this team has in the past. We have some definite strengths, for instance our pitching staff, if healthy, is in the top three in the country. I consider UCLA and Arizona right there at the top, but the LSU Tigers have one of the best pitching staffs in the country. I know because I was on the opposing side for many years and tried to recruit all three young ladies.
I know how good they are, and there are days when I walk away from the bullpen smiling and thinking to myself thinking, ‘I haven’t seen a ball break like that in quite some time.’ I coached three All-Americans and that was a pleasure. It will certainly be a plus on this year’s team if we can keep everyone healthy. The pluses are that I have not had this much team speed in quite some time, and we all know that speed kills and it is something that you cannot coach. We will utilize it to the best of our ability. Those two main criteria- team speed and phenomenal pitching are key, and adequate defense as well, and I do feel we will hit the ball.”