BATON ROUGE — Junior Britni Sneed hurled her 11th shutout of the season to lift the sixth ranked LSU Tigers to a 5-0 upset over No. 3 Alabama to complete the sweep of the Crimson Tide on Sunday in Tiger Park.
“I am so proud of this Tiger team,” said head coach Yvette Girouard. “They wanted this series and came out focused and ready to play. Britni was incredible this weekend, and Christy Connor had a weekend to dream about. Overall we played good defense and had fun this weekend. I would like to thank the fans for coming out and supporting us this weekend. They were the 10th girl on the field.”
LSU moves to 35-7 for the season and takes the lead in the Southeastern Conference with a record of 15-3. Alabama falls to 34-4 overall and 14-4 in the SEC.
With the win, Sneed moves to 22-4 on the season and 12-0 in the SEC. In seven innings of work, she only allowed two hits, walked one and sat down nine batters.
Sneed set the LSU record for shutouts in a single season with her performance today. The former record of 10 was held by Brandi Landry (1997-98).
Sneed now leads the Tigers with an overall ERA of 0.74 and 244 strikeouts. She has pitched 43 scoreless inninigs for the Tigers.
LSU pulled ahead first in the bottom of the third with two runs on two hits. Junior transfer Aleshia Perry singled down the left field line to lead-off the innng for the Tigers, and senior Dee Douglas drew a walk to reach first.
April Janzen laid down a sacrifice bunt to set the stage for sophomore Christy Connor. Connor, who had all three RBI for the Tigers on Saturday, came through with a two-RBI single to send home Douglas and Perry.
With that run, Douglas tied former-Tiger Tara Asbill for most career runs with 192.
The Tigers added three more runs to the total in the bottom of the sixth. Jill Crawford scored when Perry singled through the right side and the catcher misplayed the ball at the plate. Douglas then picked up an RBI with a ground out to send home Perry. Junior April Janzen then stepped to the plate and sailed one over the left field wall for her first home run of the season.
The Tigers had eight hits off of Alabama pitcher Shelley Laird, who falls to 21-2 for the season. Perry was three-for-three on the day, and Janzen had a home run.
LSU travels to Starkville on Wednesday and Thursday for a three-game SEC series with Mississippi State. Wednesday’s doubleheader is at 5 p.m., Thursday’s game is at 4 p.m. All three games will be carred live by the LSU Sports Network on 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge and over the Internet at www.LSUsports.net. Following the match-up with the Bulldogs, the Tigers head down to Louisiana-Lafayette to face Girouard’s alma mater in a mid-week match-up on April 18 at 5:30 p.m.