BATON ROUGE – The No. 16 LSU softball team continued its winning ways Saturday by picking up 8-0 and 2-1 victories over Campbell on day two of the Purple & Gold Challenge at Tiger Park.
With the score tied 1-1, Courtney Hollier provided the late-inning heroics and knocked the first pitch over the left field fence to give LSU its second walk-off extra inning victory. Hollier had previously gone 0-for-3 with two strikeouts against Campbell pitcher Christina Melton.
“Good things happen to good people,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “Here a good thing happened for Courtney and the Tigers today. She didn’t look so great her first two at-bats, but she kept swinging. That’s the name of the game. You have to keep swinging because all it takes is one great at-bat to change the game.”
“The whole game I struggled and I just tried to get something started for my team,” Hollier said. “I was trying to be aggressive because she had been throwing first pitch strikes the whole game. The coaches told me to stay with the pitcher, and that’s what I did. I tried to get a base hit to get something started.”
The Tigers (17-4) have now won 12 consecutive games and face off against Syracuse, a 5-3 winner over South Alabama, in Sunday’s championship game. First pitch is slated for 12:30 p.m.
Rachele Fico went the distance to notch her sixth consecutive win in the circle. She tallied six strikeouts and limited the Camels (2-11-1) to five hits.
Campbell capitalized on a Keeli Michael leadoff double in the fifth inning. She came around to score the game’s first run on a Taylor McGee RBI-single.
The Tigers responded with the equalizer in the home half of the frame and made the most of two Camels errors. Pinch runner Tiffany Shaw scampered home on an Ashley Langoni sacrifice fly to even the score at 1-1.
Fico dug her heels in and sat down the final 11 batters she faced after McGee’s single in the fifth inning.
LSU was clicking on all cylinders during the opening game as the Tigers connected for three straight hits in the first inning capped by an Anissa Young two-run single.
The Tigers exploded for six runs in the second inning to put the game out of reach. With one out, Jessica Mouse was hit-by-a-pitch. Kirsten Shortridge and Ashley Applegate followed with back-to-back to load the bases.
Rachel Mitchell cleared the ducks off the pond and cranked a double to right centerfield on a 1-2 offering to make it 5-0. Two batters later, Langoni drew another walk. Both runners came around to score on a two-run double by Hollier to push the Tiger advantage to 7-0.
Mouse came back up and added a RBI-single for the finishing touches of the 8-0 triumph. LSU rode the right arm of Cody Trahan in the circle, who sprayed five hits and mowed down five batters to improve to 4-0 on the season.
We’re still keeping teams in check even if we’re not getting the big K’s,” Girouard said. “We’re controlling things, and that’s what we really work on as a staff. We continue to roll in the circle.”
Fans can follow every game of the Purple & Gold Challenge via live stats on LSUsports.net in addition to live in-games updates on www.twitter.com/lsu_softball.