BATON ROUGE, La. – The No. 7 LSU softball team will play a three-game Southeastern Conference series over the course of two days beginning Friday as the Tigers host the No. 1 Florida Gators at Tiger Park in Baton Rouge this weekend.
The Tigers and Gators square off with a doubleheader Friday, with the first game scheduled for 4 p.m. CT at Tiger Park, with the second game scheduled for 6:30 p.m., or 30 minutes following the conclusion of the first game. Both games will be streamed on SEC Network+ with Lyn Rollins and Yvette Girouard calling the action.
Saturday’s finale is set for 11 a.m. CT and will be televised live on ESPN2 with Mark Neely and Michelle Smith. A stream of that game will also be available online through WatchESPN and the WatchESPN app.
Talk 107.3 FM locally in Baton Rouge will carry all three games of the series this weekend, with Patrick Wright calling the action from the booth. That same audio will also be available for Geaux Zone subscribers and will be available 15 minutes prior to first pitch at LSUsports.net.
The first 500 fans that arrive on Friday will receive LSU softball knit gloves, while on Girl Scouts day Saturday the first 750 fans will get to take home LSU softball foam bunny ears this Easter weekend.
LSU heads into another big SEC showdown weekend sitting at 26-5 on the year and 3-3 in the league, earning a 2-0 win over the Nicholls Colonels on Tuesday night at Tiger Park. It improved the squad’s home record to 20-2, winning 16 of the last 17 dating back to the end of February in the team’s home venue.
This weekend will prove to be another high-powered showdown as the Tigers, sporting seventh-best batting average in the country, will go against a Florida side that leads the nation in earned run average at 0.87.
“They have three pitchers who all have completely different looks and that’s something that we’re preparing for,” head coach Beth Torina said. “You have to have a game plan for each one and they all present their own challenges, but we’re confident we’ll be able to get the players ready for what to expect this weekend.”
LSU comes into the contest with a .360 batting average on the season, featuring eight players that are regular starters hitting above .300 on the season. The squad’s .552 slugging percentage is 14th nationally, while sitting just a few points behind Florida for the best on-base percentage mark in the country at .474.
LSU’s powered numbers are due in part to a trio of upperclassmen in Bianka Bell, Sahvanna Jaquish and Kellsi Kloss. The three combine for 24 of LSU’s 29 home runs this season, as the group will go down as the most prolific home run hitters in team history as coming into the weekend they are 1, 2, and 3 in the career homers chart with 51, 43 and 35, respectively.
Another player who has steadily seen her average improve over the last few games has been junior Bailey Landry, who is fourth on the team in batting average with a .370 percentage. Landry, along with freshman Amber Serrett who is third in batting with a .403 average, combined for all four of LSU’s hits in the win over the Colonels on Tuesday, as she is currently second in hits with 34.
While not having a typical weekend, the LSU pitching staff will look to get back to its dominant ways in the circle, getting a nice midweek drop in the team’s ERA thanks to Sydney Smith‘s fifth shutout of the season. Smith nearly earned a no-hitter, but still improved her record to 7-1 in the process to keep her average under 1.00, while the staff as a whole came down to 1.77.
Carley Hoover leads the team in wins with 10 and strikeouts with 100, while Allie Walljasper has issued five walks and is dishing out less than one per game which is in the top ten nationally. Baylee Corbello is 5-0 with a combined shutout, as opponents are hitting just .214 against her.
Florida is the back-to-back defending national champions and come into the contest with a 30-1 record and 5-1 league mark after two weekends of play. The Gators swept Tennessee last week, having its season-opening winning streak broken two weeks ago with an Auburn late-inning comeback for their only loss of the campaign.
“They’re a team that just knows how to win,” Torina said. “It’s a team solid in every area of the game and can do a lot of things well. They’re the best team in the country for a reason.”
This is the third year the two teams will be meeting in the regular season, as last year’s in-season series in Gainesville was one for the ages as the Tigers claimed the series with a 14-10 thriller in game two and 10-3 win in the finale. Florida won the first game of that series, winning the fourth and final meeting of the year at the Women’s College World Series 4-0.
Torina has earned wins in two of the last three against Florida, as she is just two wins away from earning her 200th victory at the helm of the program.
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.