BATON ROUGE — The No. 18 LSU softball team renews its rivalry against No. 13 Tennessee in a critical SEC weekend series at the new Tiger Park. Saturday’s doubleheader and Sunday’s single-game are on-tap for 1 p.m.
The Tigers (22-7, 8-3 SEC) have won 16 of its last 19 games outscoring its opponents 104-49 over the stretch, while the Lady Vols (27-8, 4-5 SEC) dropped two of three against Mississippi State last weekend at home.
In 10 of LSU’s 22 victories, the Tigers have been trailing or tied entering the fifth inning.
“This weekend against Tennessee is a huge series because we’d like to keep pace with the SEC leaders,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “The Vols possess an excellent short game and beat us two of three last year. There are a number of reasons for us to come out and be ready to play.”
LSU is coming off a 4-2 victory Wednesday at Southern Miss where Jessica Mouse, Kirsten Shortridge and Jazz Jackson provided back-to-back-to-back RBI singles with two outs in the sixth inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead. Brittany Mack won her seventh consecutive circle with a complete-game effort.
The LSU players and coaches will honor their families in between games of Saturday’s doubleheader as part of Parents Weekend.
Sunday’s single game is the program’s inaugural “Swing for the Cure” event to benefit the Baton Rouge Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Breast cancer survivor Diana Hofer, mother of senior Dani Hofer, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch of Sunday’s game.
LSU will be wearing commemorative pink jerseys that were donated by the LSU Softball Diamond Backers with 11 of the game worn jerseys being part of a silent auction during the game.
Other in-game auctions items include a pink Easton Batting Helmet signed by former Tiger All-American Emily Turner along with a pink Marrucci bat signed by Girouard and field passes to the LSU-Tulane football game in October. Mizuno has provided softball signed by Olympians including Jennie Finch.
As part of an online auction that closes at midnight on April 26 at www.komenbatonrouge.org, LSU football coach Les Miles and baseball coach Paul Mainieri have signed two Marrucci bats and Denicola’s Tiger Den has refurbished two chairs in pink from the old Tiger Park. Five pink jerseys also will be available online.
All proceeds from the in-game and online auctions will be donated to the Baton Rouge Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. A complete list of auction items and donations cards is available above.
“We’re extremely excited about this event,” Girouard said. “Our program has been directly affected by this dreaded disease with Dani’s mom and Katie Hamilton‘s mom. We’ll do anything that we can to help.”
All three games of the weekend series will be live on The X 104.5 and 104.9 FM in the Baton Rouge area. Patrick Wright and Kent Lowe are set to call all of the action and live stats are available on LSUSports.net
Saturday’s games will have live video in the Geaux Zone, while Sunday’s single game will be televised live on FSN (Cable Channel 38) in Baton Rouge.
As part of the SEC-TV Game of the Week, FSN Southwest in Louisiana and Arkansas in addition to FSN South in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky along with Sun Sports in Florida also will carry the game live.