BATON ROUGE — The LSU softball team swept two games against Nicholls State on Friday night to open the Collegiate Classic at the original Tiger Park.
LSU defeated the Colonels 3-1 in the first game before beating Nicholls 9-2 in the nightcap.
In the first game, LSU fell behind early 1-0 when Nicholls struck for one run in the top of the third inning. However, the Tigers tied it at one apiece in the bottom of the inning when freshman Juliana Santos blasted a homerun over the left field wall with two outs.
In the top of the fourth inning, two more Tiger freshmen combined to keep the Colonels from tacking on a run. With two outs, Nicholls’ Tori Lay attempted to score from second on a single to left field, but LSU leftfielder Katie Guillory fired a laser to catcher Morgan Russell who tagged out Lay to retire the side and keep the score knotted at one.
In the bottom of the fourth, LSU took the lead for good on a two-run single from Ashley Applegate to put the Tigers up 3-1. The single scored both Lindsey Gautreaux who led off the inning with a walk and Kirsten Shortridge who reached on an infield single.
Junior Cody Trahan took the circle for the Tigers and threw four innings, giving up one run on three hits with eight strikeouts. Sophomore Casey Faile pitched the final three innings and gave up two hits and struck out four.
In game two, Nicholls jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on freshman pitcher Brittany Mack with two runs coming on a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly. In the bottom of the second inning, LSU tied the game at two apiece when freshman Ashley Langoni crushed a two-run homerun.
LSU tagged the Colonels for five runs in the third inning to put the game out of reach. With runners on second and third, Shortridge smashed a homer over the right-center field wall to give the Tigers a 5-2 lead. LSU scored two more runs on wild pitches as Applegate and Rachel Mitchell crossed the plate to increase the lead to 7-2.
The Tigers tacked on two runs in the bottom of the sixth on a Nicholls error. Faile reached on an error when the ball squirted underneath the first baseman’s glove. The error allowed freshman Lauren Capello and Applegate to scamper home to give LSU the final margin of 9-2.
Mack pitched four innings, giving up two runs on one hit while striking out six batters and recording five walks. Shortridge came on in relief and pitched the final three innings and only gave up one hit while striking out five and walking three Colonel batters.
“We saw some really good things out here tonight,” LSU head coach Yvette Girouard said. “When you put this team together it is going to be exciting to watch. There are a lot of young faces. We missed some signals and maybe didn’t pitch quite as well as we would have liked to, but overall I was pleased. Nicholls came in having already played this fall. We have had 12 practices, so I was excited with what I saw.”
LSU will be back in action on Saturday beginning at 3 p.m. against Louisiana College. The Tigers will then play LSU-Alexandria at 5 p.m.