BATON ROUGE – The No. 19 LSU softball team plays host to the first of three consecutive tournaments as No. 4 Michigan, Oklahoma State and Virginia visit Tiger Park over the weekend for the Wilson/DeMarini Tiger Classic.
LSU (3-3) notched a 6-1 victory over Louisiana-Monroe Wednesday in its home opener. The Tigers plated a pair of runs in the second, third and fourth innings highlighted by an Ashley Langoni two-run homer. Kirsten Shortridge, Ashley Applegate and Rachel Mitchell, the top three hitters in the LSU batting order, also provided RBIs.
Mitchell and Langoni have knocked home nine of LSU’s 18 RBIs and the Tigers also have gone 11-for-12 in the stolen base department on the young season.
“We swung the bat a little bit better last night, especially in primetime situations,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “We were extremely aggressive on the base paths. Our goals are to continue to be discipline at the plate and play fundamentally sound in all facets of the game.”
Rachele Fico tossed five frames of two-hit ball and was touched up for an unearned run in her home debut, while Brittany Mack retired all six batters she faced in relief. LSU’s pitching staff dropped its ERA to 1.02 and are holding opponents to a .203 batting average.
“The competition is stiff once again this weekend,” Girouard said. “Virginia has a freshman pitcher in Melanie Mitchell that we had on our recruiting radar, while Oklahoma State is a team that always swings the bat really well. Michigan returns a lot of players from their World Series team and picked up an impressive win over UCLA last weekend so all in all a tough weekend ahead for the Tigers.”
Fans can follow every game of the Wilson/DeMarini Tiger Classic via live stats on LSUsports.net in addition to live in-games updates on www.twitter.com/lsu_softball.