BATON ROUGE – Head coach Yvette Girouard met with the media Tuesday to preview the pivotal upcoming road stretch for the No. 12 LSU softball team.
LSU (28-4, 8-0 SEC) comes off its SEC bye weekend with the nation’s longest winning streak at 23 games and faces off with McNeese State 6 p.m. on Wednesday before heading to No. 6 Florida and No. 8 Alabama.
Kirsten Shortridge fuels the offense and ranks among the SEC’s Top 10 in four different categories highlighted by 51 hits on a .447 batting average. She also has racked up 18 multi-hit efforts and posted 31 stolen bases.
Anissa Young and Rachel Mitchell headline the Tigers with 27 and 25 RBIs, respectively. Young has belted a team-best 10 doubles to go along with five home runs, while Mitchell has driven home 12 RBIs in her last nine outings.
Ashley Applegate checks in with a .341 clip and has compiled multi-hit performances in four of her last five games. She also has reached base during each game of LSU’s streak.
Ashley Langoni and Juliana Santos are scheduled to return to the LSU lineup. Langoni knocked a team-best six homers and added 16 RBIs before her 10-game absence. Santos had reached base in six of her last seven games leading into her four-game hiatus.
Courtney Hollier and Jessica Mouse also have contributed 17 RBIs apiece as the Tigers have seven players with 15 or more RBIs.
LSU’s pitching staff continues to pace not only the SEC but the nation with a 0.72 staff ERA. The trio of Rachele Fico, Brittany Mack and Cody Trahan has tallied 26 of the 28 victories in the circle. They also rank 1-2-3 in the conference’s ERA ranking.
Fico sports an 11-2 mark and has won 10 consecutive decisions since opening weekend. She also has added three saves and limited opponents to a .164 average.
Mack has compiled a 7-2 record and surrendered only two earned runs during her last 23.1 frames since SEC action began. She fired a one-hitter to open the stretch at South Carolina.
Trahan is 8-0 with a SEC-best 0.25 ERA and yielded only two runs over 56 innings of work. She has racked up 61 strikeouts against four walks and paces the staff with four shutouts.
Live stats for Wednesday’s contest against the Cowgirls are available on LSUsports.net in addition to live in-game updates on www.twitter.com/lsu_softball.
LSU Softball Press Conference
March 30, 2010
LSU HEAD COACH YVETTE GIROUARD
Opening Statement …
“It’s been a very good run as the record eludes. I didn’t even realize it was that many [wins] at one point and didn’t realize it was the nation’s longest streak right now. Before we got into SEC play, we tried not to make the same mistake we made a couple of years ago. We sat the team down and broke each conference series down into three categories. We called them the ‘must-sweeps’, where we looked at teams and said we should be 3-0 against them. The next we called ‘dog fights’, where we gave credit to our opponents and said we would win the series, but there was an opportunity to lose a game also. The ‘toss-ups’ were those series where we thought we were evenly matched, and if we didn’t show up then it could be ugly. We’ve taken care of business. Those ‘must-sweeps’ were South Carolina, Auburn and Ole Miss. The weeks coming up are going to feature our toss-up series. We have to go to Florida to play in the most hostile environment in the SEC. It’s kind of a brutal, personal environment. I think it is going to be exciting to see how our young kids react because these 10 sophomores had Florida at home last year; they never had to go to Florida and play. That’s going to be an exciting opportunity for them. I’m very confident in how they’ll react because they’ve really grown up in a year. There’s a little swagger to them. We’ll spend Easter weekend on the road and will be in Gainesville Sunday night then leave for Alabama Monday morning. We’re going to practice at Bama on Tuesday because it’s spring break for us. We’ll play Alabama on Wednesday in the country’s most unique atmosphere. They sell more season tickets than anyone in the country. They probably outsell 90 percent of baseball programs in the country. We swept Alabama here last year, so I’m sure we got a target on our backs and a lot of bulletin board material for their team. This is, without question, the most critical stretch we have in the SEC.”
On the SEC Schedule …
“The SEC really set up scheduling in our favor this year. We had our must-sweeps at the beginning so we could start strong, the crunch is in the middle, and then we come back to what we called our dog fights and then end with Georgia and Tennessee. Everyone is pointing out that we haven’t really met the big dogs yet, and that will happen this week. I feel very confident about the team, and I’m very excited to see them play in those environments. I think our kids are ready to go.”
On Ashley Langoni and Juliana Santos …
“This is the first time in 10 games that Ashley Langoni will be in our lineup again. She was on the verge of a disastrous injury, and we caught it in time. Our trainer [Ana Gross] did test after test to catch it. She was on the verge of having a torn abdominal muscle, but it was only frayed. We rested her for about three weeks, and hopefully she’ll be in the lineup against McNeese State on Wednesday night and hopefully available the rest of the year. Juliana Santos has had an enormous black cloud over her head the whole season. She’s a young lady who battles Crohn’s disease, and for the most part it was in check last year. She had foot surgery over the summer and it hasn’t rehabilitated well. Then, she got really sick in Texas so we had to rest her for a while. We finally get her back in the lineup against Auburn and she dislocates her finger. If she is back for us this week, it will be the healthiest we’ve been since the start of the season. It’s been a tremendous run and the crowds at Tiger Park have been fantastic.”
On if the pitchers feed off of each other’s success …
“I challenged them at the beginning of the year because we have four legitimate pitchers that could be No. 1’s on any team. Sometimes, there’s not a lot of cooperation between those players because everyone wants the ball. I challenged them to become a staff because a staff is what we needed to get to the College World Series. We basically ran out of pitching last year due to injuries, now in our game we can’t have enough. They’ve really taken that to heart, really trying to help each other spot things, help each other with little techniques and just there for each other. It’s a luxury I have never had in my entire coaching career that we have four legitimate pitchers. Kirsten Shortridge hasn’t really pitched much because we needed her in the outfield due to Ashley Langoni‘s injury. However, she’s about to start throwing again. It has been an incredible luxury. They’ve all thrown really well at times. If they get in a bind, we haven’t been hesitant to go out and pull them because we know we have somebody behind them that can get the job done. We’re going to need them for this stretch. I’m sure there’s is again some bulletin board material out there. Cody Trahan is the No. 1 pitcher in the SEC and LSU is No. 1 staff in the conference in ERA so I’m sure they want to break that streak against us.”
On if she has set rotation for the week …
“I think we’re going to stick with what has been working for us. Now with the addition of Shortridge that might change my thinking a little bit. We start with Cody Trahan, come back with Mack and Fico on the second day and Fico is in relief every game. She warms up the quickest and throws hard immediately. She can come in and throw strikes. She’s a great reliever and closer. We don’t have those terms in softball but maybe we need to get to that. That’s what I’ve engrained in them.”
On if the loss to McNeese State last year provides any extra motivation …
“We’re going to point that out that we went there last year. I’ve been on the other side of the road where the dollars were very sparse. When I saw McNeese’s pre-game aerial parachuters coming in with the game ball against us, I kind of figured that this was going to be a big deal because that was probably all of their promotion money spent against LSU. I’ve never seen that in softball where the skydiver brought in the game ball. I’m sure the crowd will be overflowing, and we will break the attendance record. Certainly, we will point that out to them that we weren’t successful there last year. We want to turn that around, and we’re not overlooking them at all. We know what happened last year and we want to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
On if the streak provides any extra motivation or if it is extra pressure …
“We don’t even talk about it. We don’t even really talk about rankings to them anymore. We used to do that but we haven’t talked about the streak. I didn’t even know it until it was pointed out to me by our sports information director. We’re just playing very good ball. I’ve never gotten as many comments about the quote I made about saying that they were boring to watch. The kids took that to heart, the fans in the stands are yelling at me that they are no longer boring to watch. I’ve gotten comments from all over the country that it was kind of unique comment in that it was true but a lot of coaches don’t stay that out loud. That kind of stuck in the player’s craw. Ever since then, they’ve really been a blast to be around. We’re fun to watch. We have these bumps and bruises because the kids go all out on every single play defensively. We stole a lot of bases and we’re pitching well. It has been fun. No matter what happens on this trip, it is still going to be fun because the goal is still ahead of us. Certainly, it’s going to be a deciding factor maybe in the [SEC] race but we’ve got so many games ahead of us that are crucial to us. We have to go to Tennessee where we haven’t been that successful in the past. We also have Georgia coming here on ESPN in prime time for that series.”
On if the break is a good thing or a bad thing …
“It’s a double edge sword and the coach never knows. Rachel Mitchell is seeing the ball well. She’s being very aggressive, and for her that’s incredibly important. On the other side of the coin, we absolutely needed the break. We have people that are skinned from head-to-toe and they just need a little bit of time to recuperate. I know that a bunch of them were in the clubhouse Sunday watching Florida and Alabama game [on ESPN] so their focus is pretty clear.
On if losing a game would be better for the team …
“No, I don’t think so. We want to win all the time but the reality is that you play so many games you’re going to get beat at some point. So, what is the most important thing? The most important thing is the next pitch, the next inning and the next game. There’s no pressure there. We don’t even talk about that, but again I am sure that Florida, Alabama and McNeese State are using it as bulletin board material. I know we would.”
On how impressive Cody Trahan has been this season coming back from an injury …
“It’s phenomenal. The difference this year as opposed the past is she works ahead. She was always behind in the count. When you are behind in the count, you don’t get to use your big movement pitches. You have to throw the ball down the middle to get back into the game so she has been ahead this year. She doesn’t have to pitch as much so maybe she isn’t as tired. Maybe that has helped her back because we have been battling that since the day we’ve gotten here. She has been incredible effective and I would credit that to the fact that she works ahead and is far more consistent. She couldn’t throw the same pitch two times in a row before and now she can.”