BATON ROUGE – Anissa Young knocked a pair of home runs en route to a career-best five RBIs to fuel the No. 16 LSU softball team to an impressive 11-0 five-inning victory over Southeastern Louisiana Wednesday at Tiger Park.
Young connected for consecutive two-run blasts in the second and third innings. It marked the 24th time in program history that a LSU player has knocked two home runs in a game.
“Anissa has more fire in her belly this season,” head coach Yvette Giroaurd. “She wants to be the player that leads our team in home runs and RBIs when the season is done. She came out here, worked hard yesterday at practice and has been far more focused. It really shows in her production at the plate.”
LSU (8-4) has won six of its last seven games and improved to 75-5 against in-state opponents under Girouard. The 11 runs were a season-high as the Tigers reached double-digit hits for the second consecutive game.
LSU jumped on the Lions (3-6) early with a six-run first inning. After back-to-back walks to Kirsten Shortridge and Ashley Applegate, Rachel Mitchell opened the scoring with a RBI-single. Young followed with a RBI-double down the left field line to make it 2-0.
An Ashley Langoni walk reloaded the bases and Lauren Houston collected her first career RBI by coaxing a 13-pitch walk of her own to plate Young. Jessica Mouse tacked on a two-run single and Shortridge capped the frame with another RBI-single to push LSU’s lead to 6-0.
Courtney Hollier cranked her first career home run, a solo shot, in the second inning between Young’s two long balls for the final margin of 11-0.
“I’ve been working really hard trying to see pitches better and [the ball] found my barrel today,” Young said. “It’s really important for us to take care of games against in-state schools. They’re great teams, and our goal is to come out strong because we know we need these wins in the long run.”
LSU’s pitchers continued its dominance in the circle and were touched up for only a trio of singles. The Tigers haven’t allowed a run in their last 13.1 innings of work. Cody Trahan started the game by sitting down six of the seven batters she faced and recorded three strikeouts.
Brittany Mack picked up the win to improve to 2-2 and retired the last five batters she faced. The Tiger pitchers concluded the game with eight strikeouts as Rachele Fico struck out the side in the fifth inning to wrap up the 11-0 victory.
LSU plays host to the second of three tournaments as Houston, Jacksonville State and Southern visit Tiger Park this weekend for the Tiger Invitational. Live stats for all tournament games are available on LSUsports.net in addition to live in-game updates on www.twitter.com/lsu_softball.
Tickets are on-sale now and can be purchased online on LSUSports.net, the official Web site of LSU Athletics. Tickets also can be purchased in person at the ticket office on the first floor of the Athletics Administration Building or by calling (225) 578-2184 or (800) 960-8587.