BATON ROUGE – The No. 19 LSU softball team garnered a 3-0 victory over Virginia followed by a 6-4 comeback win over Oklahoma State Friday to open the Wilson/DeMarini Tiger Classic at Tiger Park.
“I’m not quite sure why, but we were a little sluggish. At the end of the day, you’ve got to enjoy the wins,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “You’ve got to figure out how to click on all cylinders and that’s the coach’s job to do that. It was a tale of two innings for us in both games. Luckily, we outscored the other teams in those two innings. Some good things happened today, and I was proud of the way we found a way to fight back and win that last game against Oklahoma State.”
The Tigers (5-3) took advantage of early struggles from Virginia (1-3) pitcher Melanie Mitchell, scoring all three runs in the first inning. Kirsten Shortridge led off the frame with a walk and stole a pair of bases before scoring on an illegal pitch.
Ashley Applegate drew a walk, stole a base and scored on a wild pitch, while Anissa Young capped the inning with an RBI double that scored Rachel Mitchell, who also reached on a walk.
LSU threatened again in the third inning, as two more illegal pitches combined with Shortridge’s third steal of the game resulted in runners on second and third with two outs. However, the Tigers were unable to capitalize as Mitchell induced a groundout to keep the score at 3-0.
Cody Trahan set the tone early and was touched up for two hits. She struck out two over 3.2 innings of work in her season debut. The Little Cypress, Texas native gave way to Rachele Fico, who entered the game with runners on second and third base. With the count already 1-1, Fico needed only one pitch to get of the jam with a popup.
Fico tacked on four strikeouts in her 3.1 frames of relief and sat down 10 of the 12 batters she faced to improve to 3-2 on the season.
LSU was able to outlast an early outburst from the Cowgirls (5-2), who notched three runs in the first three innings. Brittany Mack relieved Fico in the third inning and nearly worked her way out of a bases-loaded jam before surrendering a RBI-double to Julie Ward to make the score 3-0.
The Tigers loaded the bases in the first inning highlighted by a 12-pitch walk from Ashley Langoni, but couldn’t send a run across the plate as Juliana Santos lined out to OSU second baseman Alysia Hamilton.
LSU’s offensive fortunes turned around in the fourth inning. Young ignited the rally with a leadoff double and Langoni brought the Tigers back to 3-2 on a towering home run to left center, her third of the season. A single from Juliana Santos forced a pitching change from the Cowgirls.
The Tigers kept their momentum going. After a Lauren Capello pinch-hit walk put runners on first and second, Jessica Mouse ripped a double down the left field line to give LSU a 4-3 edge. Shortridge and Applegate added RBI-hits to push the Tiger advantage to 6-3.
“We went into the fourth inning with the idea that one hit was going to spark us. Anissa (Young) got the leadoff double. That really sparked us and got us going,” Mouse said. “We just started passing the bat and got it done when we came to the plate with runners in scoring position. Everybody was focused. Hitting is very contagious thing. When someone gets one or two good ones, the rest of the team follows.”
Mack proved to be solid in her three innings from the bullpen, yielding four hits and giving up one run before turning the game back over to Fico in the sixth inning. Fico closed the game with consecutive strikeouts to bring her game total to five and earn her first save of her career.
Earlier in the day, No. 4 Michigan claimed a pair of shutouts, defeating Virginia by a score of 13-0 before earning a 7-0 win over Oklahoma State.
LSU will close out the round-robin portion of the tournament against Michigan at 1:30 p.m. Saturday before beginning bracket play later in the day. The Tigers last faced the Wolverines in the opening game of the 2004 Women’s College World Series. LSU claimed a 3-2 win in the marathon battle that spanned 13 innings and lasted nearly three and a half hours.
“It’s a coaching staff that I have the utmost respect for. They’re great people and have a tremendous program. I was very impressed with Michigan today. They have outstanding pitching and they just flat-out hit the ball. It’s the reason they’ve been at the College World Series year-after-year. It’s a golden opportunity for the Tigers, and it’s one of those games that you live to put the uniform on for.”
LSU Head Coach Yvette Girouard
On getting two wins tonight…
“I’m not quite sure why, but we were a little sluggish. At the end of the day, you’ve got to enjoy the wins. You’ve got to figure out how to click on all cylinders and that’s the coach’s job to do that. It was a tale of two innings for us in both games. Luckily, we outscored the other teams in those two innings. Some good things happened today, and I was proud of the way we found a way to fight back and win that last game against Oklahoma State.”
On a six-run outburst against Oklahoma State after a sluggish start…
“We had some good at-bats, we were right on their pitchers. I thought we made solid contact with not much to show for it. There were a couple of mistakes, and we paid for it early in the game. Finally, the bats just exploded in one inning. Luckily, it was enough. We got prime time at-bat after at-bat after at-bat, which was a great thing during that fourth inning.”
On pitcher Cody Trahan‘s season debut against Virginia…
“Typical of all pitchers, she didn’t want to come out of the game. Cody hasn’t thrown been able to throw a lot at practice and it was a cold night. She gave us some good innings and we’ll work from there.”
On Rachele Fico‘s performance tonight…
“She’s having to really battle some extremely tight strike zones, and she’s learning the hard way to work with the umpire. That’s the bottom line. You’ve got to work with them first. I thought it was a gutsy effort by Ray to come back in and get the save for us.”
On facing fourth-ranked Michigan tomorrow…
“It’s a coaching staff that I have the utmost respect for. They’re great people and have a tremendous program. I was very impressed with Michigan today. They have outstanding pitching and they just flat-out hit the ball. It’s the reason they’ve been at the College World Series year-after-year. It’s a golden opportunity for the Tigers, and it’s one of those games that you live to put the uniform on for.”
On the keys to playing well tomorrow…
“We’re going to have to come out aggressive, positive, and put the bat on the ball. Any opportunity we get, we have to take advantage of it.”
On importance of two wins tonight
“We knew we were facing some tough competition coming into the weekend. Coach (Girouard) told us that everyone needed to come into the game focused with our intensity levels up. It took us a little while to find our intensity tonight, but we finally found it in that fourth inning against Oklahoma State. Tomorrow, we have to come out even stronger.”
On fourth inning rally in game versus Oklahoma State
“We went into the fourth inning with the idea that one hit was going to spark us. Anissa (Young) got the leadoff double. That really sparked us and got us going. We just started passing the bat and just got it done when we came to the plate with runners in scoring position. Everybody was focused. Hitting is very contagious thing. When someone gets one or two good ones, the rest of the team follows.”
On Tomorrow’s game against Michigan
“I think it’s a great opportunity for us. They have two great pitchers [Nikki Nemitz and Jordan Taylor]. We need to come out with a lot of intensity. We have an opportunity to show something and have to come out with fire in our bellies ready to play.”