BATON ROUGE — Without taking into consideration the signing of preseason high school All-American Alicia Owen, the 2002 Tiger softball recruiting class has been ranked fifth in the nation by Student Sports magazine. The ranking, the first of its kind for collegiate softball, appears in the May issue of the magazine.
UCLA leads the way with the top recruiting class, followed by Arizona, Oklahoma and Washington. Stanford comes in at No. 6, as Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee and Northwestern round out the top 10.
LSU’s recruiting class features three players who were selected preseason All-Americans among the six signees. Catcher Leigh Ann Danos is considered a member of the recruiting class although she graduated from Katy High School in December and played for the Tigers during the 2002 season.
Shortstop Lauren Delahoussaye of nationally ranked Teurlings Catholic High School in Lafayette batted over .400 for her career, including a .463 average her senior season. The preseason All-American helped Teurlings win its third straight state championship on her way to first-team All-State honors.
Preseason All-American Camille Harris of Beach High School in Hendersonville, Tenn., will help fill the void in the LSU outfield, which lost SEC Athlete of the Year Trena Peel and starters Aleshia Perry and Erin Johnson to graduation in 2002.
Harris played both centerfield and shortstop at Beech and helped lead her team to the Class 3A state title in 2001. She is also a member of the 18-and-under Tennessee Fire and Smoke that captured the state title. Harris hit .522 in summer ball last summer.
A speedster in the outfield, LaDonia Hughes will transfer to LSU from Lake City (Fla.) Community College where she was a key part of its first national championship in 2001. She earned first-team All-America and All-Conference honors after batting over .400 and setting school records with 10 triples and 85 runs scored. A native of Farmville, Va., Hughes hit over .400 and stole 30 bases her senior season at Prince Edward High School.
LSU’s fifth signee, Leslie Klein, hails from Sunrise, Fla. As member of the South Plantation High School team, she helped her team make a regional appearance and was named to the All-Broward County and All-South Florida first teams.
In centerfield for South Plantation, Klein hit .396 her sophomore season and improved to .576 at the end of her junior season. She also finished her junior season in the top five nationally in RBI, home runs, runs scored and stolen bases.
LSU won its fourth-consecutive SEC regular season title and became the first school to win back-to-back SEC Tournament titles in 2002, finishing the season ranked No. 9 in the nation. The Tigers advanced to the NCAA Regionals as a No. 1 seed in Region 3, but lost out to Arizona State on the final day of competition.
2002 Student Sports Recruiting Class Rankings 1. UCLA 2. Arizona 3. Oklahoma 4. Washington 5. LSU 6. Stanford 7. Michigan 8. Alabama 9. Tennessee 10. Northwestern
Honorable Mention: Arizona State, California, Florida, Fresno State, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon State, Texas and UAB.