BATON ROUGE — Coming off the most successful season in school history, the LSU softball team will begin 2002 with a No. 4 national ranking in the USA Today/National Fastpitch Coaches Association preseason rankings.
The No. 4 national ranking is the highest for a Tiger team to start the season. LSU spent most of last year in the No. 3 spot and finished the season there.
“This ranking gives us a lot of confidence heading into the season,” said head coach Yvette Girouard. “But we also have to take it for what it is worth, just a preseason prediction. It is up to us to live up to the billing.”
Led by All-American pitcher Britni Sneed, the Tigers return one starting pitcher and six starting position players from the team that finished tied for third in the 2001 Women’s College World Series.
The newcomers, which include six highly-touted freshmen, are led by sophomore transfer Kristin Schmidt who earned All-America honors as a pitcher at Notre Dame a season ago.
“I think we have as much talent as anyone in the nation this year with the core of players we have returning,” Girouard said. “When you add our incoming class to that, we have the chance to have as much, if not more success than last season.”
National runner-up Arizona owned the top spot over defending national champion UCLA. Stanford was third while California rounded out the top five.
The Pac-10 continued to impress as Arizona State and Washington placed in the top ten at eighth and ninth. Iowa was sixth while 2000 national champion Oklahoma was seventh and Cal State-Fullerton was 10th.
LSU leads three Southeastern Conference teams in the top 25 as Alabama and South Carolina came in at 14th and 22nd, respectively. In-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette was voted No. 21.
USA Today/NFCA Top 25
NCAA Division I
January 23, 2002
No. Team (first-place votes) Points
1. Arizona (20) 668
2. UCLA (7) 655
3. Stanford 604
4. LSU 591
5. California 543
6. Iowa 492
7. Oklahoma 485
8. Arizona State 469
9. Washington 431
10. Cal State-Fullerton 424
11. Michigan 414
12. Nebraska 341
13. Alabama 297
14. Notre Dame 281
15. Florida State 261
16. Fresno State 239
17. Southwest Texas State 220
18. Oregon State 207
t19. DePaul 198
t19. Pacific 198
21. Louisiana-Lafayette 184
22. South Carolina 144
23. San Diego State 67
24. Massachusetts 59
25. South Florida 50