BATON ROUGE, La. – The No. 2 LSU softball team opens the last full month of the regular season on Friday evening, opening a three-game SEC series with the Ole Miss Rebels at 6 p.m. in Tiger Park.
All three games of this weekend’s series will be streamed live online on SEC Network+ through WatchESPN, with Patrick Wright calling all of the action on ESPN 104.5/9 locally in Baton Rouge and in the Geaux Zone.
With it being Easter weekend, the Tigers will open the series on Friday at 6 p.m., before playing a doubleheader on Saturday afternoon beginning at 2 p.m. for game two, with game three beginning 30 minutes following the conclusion of the first game. Fans who come out on Friday will receive LSU softball trading cards featuring the players and coaches, as the group will celebrate Easter on Saturday by giving out LSU softball wrist watches and fans having the opportunity to take a picture with the Easter Bunny.
On Tuesday, the Tigers hosted the then-24-8 ULM Warhawks at Tiger Park, coming off of its first series loss of the year at freezing Kentucky. For the first time all season, it seemed as if the Tigers were starting to come back down a bit after a meteoric rise that saw the group climb to the No. 1 spot in the rankings for two weeks, only dropping a single slot when the new polls came out this past Tuesday.
Looking back on the year with 36 of LSU’s games already complete, Tuesday was another stiff test against a visiting team on a winning streak, looking to earn a win over a top-flight power conference foe, which LSU snuffed in a 7-3 victory. The Tigers will be looking to do the same this weekend against an Ole Miss squad that has won seven-straight with two SEC series sweeps to its credit.
“We know that every time we step on the field, we’re taking that team’s best shot,” head coach Beth Torina said. “The biggest thing for us is that we’re playing at home, in front of our fans and where I think we play our best. Of course there are a lot of things both defensively and offensively that we need to work on as a group that we’ll address so we can play at our best this weekend.”
By sheer numbers alone, including Tuesday, LSU has played 19 games against teams with more than 20 wins at this point in the season, winning 16 of those matchups. Going forward, LSU’s strength of schedule will only skyrocket like its current No. 2 RPI ranking, as seven of their final eight opponents will have 25 or more wins at the time of competition leading into the SEC Tournament in May.
But before those games can be played, the Tigers will look to remain unbeaten at home against Ole Miss this weekend and get its offense rolling again before a week-long road jaunt that will have the team between Starkville and Knoxville beginning next Wednesday. LSU has found some of its best offensive magic at home, as the Tigers are averaging nearly nine hits and seven runs per game at Tiger Park.
The Tigers nearly hit both of those totals against the Warhawks, pounding out seven runs on seven hits against ULM, while opponents are struggling to the tune of an average of only four hits and barely over a run scored per contest.
While the power numbers for the Tigers have been an impressive part of the season, lately it’s been the bat of the slappers that have had some of the biggest impacts through this two-game stretch and quietly over the course of the season.
Leading the way in just her second season is Bailey Landry, who has steadily kept her average above .450 for much of the season. Now two years in she is already well ahead of her freshman campaign with 50 hits which is second on the team, second in average and third in on-base percentage. She drove in a career-high four RBIs on Tuesday on three hits, as she is on a five-game hitting streak.
The top and bottom of the order in A.J. Andrews and Emily Griggs have also been formidable, as on Tuesday alone, the newest member of the Chicago Bandits later this summer in Andrews was walked a season-high three times and now has 31 on the season, 12 shy of the single-season record. Griggs earned her fourth hit in two games on Tuesday, while also driving in at least a run for the eighth time on the season.
Still, the fans of the long ball got a bit of fireworks as well against ULM, as Sahvanna Jaquish ended LSU’s three-game homerless drought, hitting her 14th of the season to break the 2-all tie in the very first pitch of the very first at-bat of the third inning. Jaquish has hit each of the last three home runs for LSU, as she is just three shy of tying her own program single-season record set last year, entering the top five all-time at LSU in the process with 31.
Although the idea of a pitching staff-mentality is still relatively new to softball, this past week proved that it’s no fluke as LSU was able to earn the win using a relief pitcher just two outs into a contest. Although ULM was able to get to starter Kelsee Selman relatively quickly in the contest, they had no consistent answers for reliever Carley Hoover who fanned a career-best 11 in 6.1 innings with only a single run allowed after.
What it proved was that the reliable arms of four pitchers in the dugout can change the outcome of a game at any point in time, considering that the Tigers have four pitchers who combine for a 1.40 earned run average with 15 shutouts and 261 strikeouts as a unit. Whether it’s Baylee Corbello and her league-leading 0.99 ERA, Selman’s team-leading five shutouts, Hoover’s 90 strikeouts or Allie Walljasper‘s nine wins, teams likely won’t see the same pitcher twice.
While LSU holds a 47-7 all-time mark against Ole Miss in program history, a new coaching staff and some new blood infused into the program has no resemblance to the team the Tigers swept in three games last year in Oxford by a combined score of 26-6. Mike Smith who took the job after being at McNeese State has the Rebels 22-13 on the season and 5-7 in the SEC.
“It’s a completely new atmosphere there at Ole Miss,” Torina said. “They have some really nice offensive players that will give us different looks throughout their lineup. At the plate we will need to be disciplined as much of their pitching success comes from people chasing things out of the zone, so we’ll need to keep them honest and staying in the zone.”
For all of the latest news and information on Tiger softball, visit www.lsusports.net/softball. Fans can also follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/lsusoftball along with @lsusoftball and @BethTorina on Twitter and @lsusb on Instagram.