BATON ROUGE – Morgan Russell and Anissa Young matched career-highs with three hits apiece to fuel an 11-hit attack as the No. 21 LSU softball team cruised to a 6-1 victory over South Carolina Saturday during the middle game of an SEC series in-front of 1,515 fans at Tiger Park.
LSU (37-15, 18-9 SEC) collected its 11th straight victory and has emerged with wins in 22 of its last 25 games dating back to March 19. The Tigers also remained in sole possession of fourth place in overall SEC race with one game remaining during the regular season.
“Once again, we played good defense and received some timely hitting,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “Morgan’s been a hard luck batter. She hits the ball very well, but it’s right at people. Today, she got a little bit of luck. The softball God’s gave her one, but she hit the ball very hard the other two times. Anissa [Young] had quite a day too.”
Rachele Fico went the distance in the circle and picked up 10 strikeouts. She was touched up for one run on eight hits and improved to 14-9 on the season.
“Rachele did a great job and hit her spots,” Russell said. “She did exactly what she needed to do. It’s very easy to catch a pitcher that rarely misses her spots, and we have a really good connection. We work well together. I’m really proud of her, she did a great job.”
LSU batted around the lineup en route to a three-run third inning. Young laced a leadoff single up the middle and moved to second base on a South Carolina fielding error.
Two batters later, Lauren Houston platted pinch runner Katie Guillory for the game’s first run with a RBI single. Russell and Tiffany Shaw tacked on RBI singles of their own to make it 3-0.
The Tigers notched three more runs during the fifth inning. Russell and Jacee Blades set the table with a pair of singles and advanced into scoring position on a Shaw sacrifice bunt.
Simone Heyward cranked a RBI single to left field to extend the LSU lead to 4-0. Young capped the frame with a two-run single to move her RBI total to 40 for the season and push the advantage to 6-0.
The Gamecocks (26-29, 6-21 SEC) dented the scoreboard on a Chelsea Hawkins solo home run in the sixth inning for the final margin of 6-1.
The series finale is on-tap for Sunday at 1 p.m. with live video, live audio and live stats available in the Geaux Zone on LSUsports.net. The first 1,000 fans will receive a commemorative Yvette Girouard coin. Following the game, Girouard will be honored with a special ceremony celebrating her 35-year coaching career.
“We have a lot of respect for Coach Girouard,” Russell said. “We want to win for her so tomorrow is going to be a very emotional, but we know we have to give a strong effort to win. We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this for her.”
The contest will be carried live on ESPN 104.5 FM with Patrick Wright and Kent Lowe calling the action. In-game updates are provided via the program’s social media pages at www.Facebook.com/lsusoftball and www.Twitter.com/LSU_Softball.
The Tiger Park Ticket Booth opens 90 minutes prior to first pitch. Fans can purchase tickets on-site starting at $5 for adult general admission. Tickets also are available online at www.LSUtix.net.
Softball Quotes – May 7, 2011
No. 21 LSU vs. South Carolina
HEAD COACH YVETTE GIROUARD
On the offensive performance today…
“I’d like to have blown it open a little bit earlier, but we’ll take six runs. Once again, we played good defense and some timely hitting. We have to be a little bit smarter with the hitting, we have to execute the game plan for seven innings.”
On Morgan Russell‘s performance at the plate today…
“Morgan’s been a hard luck batter. She hits the ball very well, but it’s right at people. Today, she got a little bit of luck. The softball God’s gave her one, but she hit the ball very hard the other two times. Anissa [Young] had quite a day too.”
On the approach and execution at the plate…
“We have to be a little bit more mature at the plate. When we have nobody out and we get an outside pitch, we need to crush that ball to the right side. Especially when the situation has the fastest Tiger on third base. We need just a little bit more discipline at the plate.”
On Fico’s performance…
“Unfortunately, she gave up that one bomb, but she had some very, very good pitches that got her out of jams. I thought it was a solid effort.”
On trying to finish the season on a sweep going into the SEC tournament…
“Our expectations were never to finish fourth after the way we started the SEC season, but nobody panicked. To climb through this league after the way we started, kudos to our kids because we didn’t give up. Nobody gave up. Everyone wondered what was wrong with LSU Softball, but we’re playing well right now.”
CATCHER MORGAN RUSSELL
On a more convincing win today…
“We came into this game knowing we had a game under our belt in the series. We knew that South Carolina has been successful coming back and beating teams the next day. We came in here, told ourselves we had to do it and then did it. I’m really proud of our team. We did well, we succeeded, we executed when we needed to, and we did the things we needed to do to win.”
On doing so well at the plate today…
“I’ve been struggling a lot with my hitting. I’ve been hitting the ball hard every time, but they haven’t been falling. I went to the plate telling myself I’m going to do anything possible to get the ball to fall, whether it’s a little blooper, I was going to do anything.
On Fico’s performance…
“She did a great job and hit her spots. She did exactly what she needed to do. It’s very easy to catch a pitcher that rarely misses her spots, and we have a really good connection. We work well together. I’m really proud of her, she did a great job.”
On going for the sweep and Coach’s last game…
“We have a lot of respect for Coach Girouard. We want to win for her so tomorrow is going to be a very emotional, but we know we have to give a strong effort to win. We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this for her.”