BATON ROUGE — The No. 20 LSU softball team looks to build on its sweep of South Carolina as the Tigers wrap up the regular season with a trip to Auburn. Both Saturday’s doubleheader and Sunday’s single game get underway at 1 p.m.
LSU (30-14-1, 13-9-1 SEC) didn’t play a mid-week contest for the first time since mid-February.
“It was nice to have a little break to get a couple of players healthy,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “Like South Carolina last weekend, Auburn is another opponent with their back against the wall. They have two very good pitchers, and I’m sure we’ll get their best shot. We’ll have to be focused and maintain our composure to be successful in Auburn.”
LSU carries a 36-11 all-time series edge against Auburn (28-24, 8-17 SEC) and have won eight straight meetings, including all four games last season. LSU defeated Auburn 4-0 in the SEC Tournament Quarterfinals as Cody Trahan tossed a complete game shutout with eight strikeouts.
Trahan, the reigning LSWA Pitcher of the Week, is coming off a pair of stellar performances against South Carolina. She fired a two-hitter and a one-hitter and held the Gamecocks to an .081 batting average.
“Cody helped herself out by throwing strikes and getting ahead of hitters,” Girouard said. “She also limited her walks which allowed her to keep her pitch count low. Those things are paramount to her success right now.”
The LSU offense racked up a .354 team batting average against South Carolina highlighted by a 6-for-8 performance and five RBIs from Kirsten Shortridge. For her efforts, Shortridge claimed LSWA Hitter of the Week.
Jazz Jackson has notched hits in 20 of 23 SEC games en route to a .383 batting average. She has posted eight multi-hit efforts in league games and went 3-for-3 during the South Carolina series finale.
Rachel Mitchell has compiled hits in 10 of her last 14 games and collected 18 of her team-best 32 RBIs over her last 22 games.
Juliana Santos and Anissa Young contributed a combined nine RBIs during the South Carolina series. Santos has driven home 19 of her 25 RBIs in SEC action, while Young is hitting a scorching .366 when putting the ball in play.
“We’ve got a new commitment on offense and impressed upon the players the importance of every inning at the plate,” Girouard said. “We realized that we were throwing away too many at-bats. The players were far more focused, locked in and scored early in all three games last weekend.
All three games of the Auburn series will be broadcasted live on The X 104.5/104.9 FM. Patrick Wright and Matt Dunaway will call the action in addition to live stats being available on LSUSports.net.