BATON ROUGE — The 12th-ranked LSU softball team saw its 15-game home winning streak snapped as nationally ranked Georgia took a pair of games, 11-0 in five innings and 1-0, at Tiger Park on Saturday afternoon.
With the wins, the 13th-ranked Bulldogs improved to 24-6 overall and 7-1 in Southeastern Conference play. The Tigers fell to 25-5 overall and 3-2 in league play. The pair will conclude the series on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Tiger Park.
“Georgia was the better team today,” said LSU head coach Yvette Girouard. “Tomorrow is a new day and we need to salvage something out of this series.”
In the second game, the Tigers had a chance early to take the lead. In the bottom of the first inning, Lauren Castle led off with an infield single. With Dee Dee Henderson running for Castle, Henderson stole second. A fly ball to right field moved Henderson to third. After Vanessa Soto walked, Henderson was thrown out attempting to score on an infield ground ball to shortstop by Leslie Klein.
Georgia took the lead with the only run of the game in the top of the second. With two outs, Kasi Carroll singled up the middle. A triple by Victoria Sanders to left field that tipped off the glove of Camille Harris allowed Carroll to score from first to give the Bulldogs their only run, 1-0.
Soto led off the bottom of the fourth inning with her team-leading 10th double of the season, but LSU could not push the tying run across the plate. The Tigers went down in order to end the inning and saw the next seven batters retired in order before Stephanie Hill recorded a one-out single in the bottom of the seventh. With the tying run on base, LSU could still get nothing going as back-to-back fly outs to right field ended the game.
“We couldn’t get any primetime hitting,” said Girouard. “We had our chances in the second game with all the right people up, but we’re just not getting it done right now.”
Emily Turner took the loss for LSU to fall to 8-2 on the season despite an outstanding effort in the circle. The junior allowed just one run on five hits with no walks and four strikeouts.
Jessica Doucette earned the win for Georgia to improve to 7-3 on the season. She scattered three hits with two walks and a strikeout in the complete-game effort.
In the first game, it fell apart early for LSU and the Tigers could not recover. Georgia went ahead 5-0 in the top of the first inning on a pair of home runs. The Bulldogs added one in the second, three in the third and two in the fifth to complete the scoring.
LSU got only one hit off of Carroll, who earned the complete game win for Georgia to improve to 11-2 on the season. She also walked one and struck out five in the victory.
Dani Hofer started and took the loss for the Tigers to fall to 8-3 on the season. She allowed five runs on three hits with a walk and a strikeout in two-thirds of an inning. Tiffany Garcia came on in relief and allowed four runs, one earned, on four hits in two and a third. Megan Jolly closed out the game for LSU. She allowed two unearned runs on three this with a walk in two innings.
After the completion of the Georgia series, LSU will host a non-conference doubleheader with Northwestern State on Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Tiger Park. The Tigers will then take to the road to face Kentucky in SEC play next weekend.