BATON ROUGE – The No. 25 LSU softball team hits the road for the first time during the 2012 season this weekend at the Louisville Slugger Desert Classic. The Tigers had their Wednesday game with Florida State rescheduled to April 17 due to rain.
LSU faces off with DePaul [Saturday at 11 a.m. CT] and Cal State Northridge [Saturday at 1:15 p.m. CT] followed by Sunday tilts with No. 3 California [Sunday at 1:15 p.m. CT] and Utah State [Sunday at 3:30 p.m. CT].
“We definitely have quality opponents this week,” head coach Beth Torina said. “We do not have an off weekend with our schedule. It is going to be tough the whole way. It is definitely going to prepare us for the SEC, and we have to look at the positives of it. I know that these challenges are going to make us stronger in the end.”
LSU started the Torina era with a 2-2 record at the Tiger Classic. In the circle, Rachele Fico secured both wins and tossed 13 shutout innings en route to Tiger Classic All-Tournament Team and Louisiana Pitcher of the Week honors. Opponents tallied three hits and a .073 batting clip versus Fico.
“Rachele was just dominating all weekend, and she controlled everyone we faced,” Torina said. “I thought she had pretty good location. She is very confident, and she is such a great competitor. You can see it on her face every time she is out there.”
Offensively, Juliana Santos picked up a team-high four RBIs to fuel the Tigers. After playing only three games in 2011 due to injury, Ashley Applegate returned to the starting lineup and hit safely in three of four games over the weekend.
Ashley Langoni connected for LSU’s lone home run and drew seven walks, while Rikki Alcaraz and Kailey McCasland tallied their first career RBIs against Louisiana Tech.
“It was a challenging opening weekend, but the best part was that we finished a lot stronger than we started,” Torina said. “You saw more of what we are actually going to be as we finished the weekend. I liked that they showed some bounce back, some resilience. They were able to come back and really start swinging well.”
Live stats for every LSU softball game this season will be available on www.LSUsports.net/livestats.
Fans also can receive live in-game updates by following LSU softball on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/lsusoftball and @lsu_softball on Twitter.