BATON ROUGE — The eighth-ranked LSU softball team shutout the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, 6-0, on Monday afternoon in Tiger Park for its third-straight shutout win in the Purple and Gold Challenge.
“I am totally pleased with the entire team’s effort today,” said head coach Yvette Girouard. “We came out and hit the ball hard like we did in Arizona. Our defense settled down after the first two plays of the game and the
pitching was incredible. It was a good closure to the Purple and Gold Challenge.”
LSU (17-4) pulled ahead of the Golden Hurricane in the bottom of the second when catcher Jennifer Schuelke drew a bases loaded walk to send home Jill Crawford. Freshman third baseman Julie Wiese led off the bottom of the third with a triple and was singled home by Schuelke, who picked up her second RBI of the day.
The Tigers broke out with four runs on five hits in the bottom of the fourth. Christy Connor singled up the middle to send base runners Crawford and Stephanie Hastings home. Freshman Sara Fitzgerald picked up two RBI with a single to right field to send home Connor and Trena Peel.
Ashley Lewis threw the first two innings for LSU, striking out three and giving up no hits. Britni Sneed relieved her in the third inning to pick up the win and improve her record to 9-4 for the season. Sneed struck out four and gave up one hit. Freshman Sarah Meadors finished the last three innings of the game, striking out six and giving up two hits.
The Tiger bats had 12 hits off Hurricane pitchers Jenny Magill and Amy VanHuss. Wiese hit her first triple of the season, going 3-for-4 at the plate. Dee Douglas was 2-for-2.
LSU will play a single game against Northwestern State on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. before heading to Gainesville, Fla., for their Southeastern Conference opener against Florida.