BATON ROUGE — LSU won its first Southeastern Conference softball title Friday night with a 6-0 win in the first game of a softball doubleheader with Alabama at Tiger Park.
But the Tigers, ranked seventh in the nation and first in the NCAA South Region, saved the real heroics for the second game, scoring two runs in the bottom of the 10th inning to score a dramatic 3-2 come-from-behind win over the Tide to complete the sweep before 895 fans, the fourth largest crowd in Tiger Park’s three-year history.
The Tigers are now 48-8 on the season and 25-3 in the SEC. Alabama falls to 19-9 and 38-20 for the season. The two teams conclude the regular season on Saturday with another doubleheader at 1 p.m. at Tiger Park. Both games will be broadcast in the Baton Rouge area on the LSU Sports Network (107.3 FM).
LSU quickly wrapped up the suspense over needing one game to win the title outright in game one, scoring two runs in the first and three in the second off Alabama starter Shelly Laird. It was Ashlee Ducote’s double which scored Trena Peel with the first run and then Stephanie Hastings followed with a single to right which scored Ducote.
The big blow in the second inning was Tara Asbill’s two-run single which scored Britni Sneed and Dee Douglas and left Trena Peel standing on third briefly. When the Crimson Tide was slow getting the ball back to the circle to call time, Peel was able to sneak in on the play for the third run of the game.
That was all Sneed would need to record her 19th win of the season and record her seventh shutout of the campaign.
But it was a nearly three-hour game two which had everyone on the edge of their seats. Alabama got the first blow home in the second when Christy Kyle’s double to right scored Kristi Frenier to give the Tide a 1-0 lead off LSU starter Ashley Lewis.
LSU tied the game in the bottom of the third despite having one runner thrown out on a questionable call at the plate. Dee Douglas, who walked in the inning, would score on a Ducote single and those two would be instrumental later in the contest.
That’s the way the game stayed despite close calls by both teams, most notably in the Alabama seventh when Lewis walked Kiersten Arnsten and Suzanne Olcott and then intentionally walked Alabama slugger Kelly Kretschman to load the bases with two out. Lewis got behind 2-0 on Kelly Askew and Glenn Moore brought Sneed back in. Sneed got Askew to strike out ending the threat.
Neither team scored in the eighth and ninth, but in the 10th with the game using the tiebreaker rule which starts the inning with a runner on second, Alabama tallied once when Ginger Jones drove him Kretschman.
In the bottom of the 10th, with pinch runner Taryn Perry on second, Auburn Ziober sacrificed her to third. Dee Douglas then laid a ball down the first base line which stayed fair for an infield hit, scoring Perry to tie the game.
Douglas then proceeded to steal second and third, giving her an SEC record 41 for the season, and Alabama elected to walk Peel and Asbill. That put Ducote at the plate with one out and the bases loaded.
Ducote hit a grounder to third. Frenier picked it up and tossed it home for the force of Douglas. Catcher Askew then tried to throw to first as Douglas slid in and the throw bounded into right field, allowing Peel to score with the winning run.
Sneed in winning her second game of the evening, raised her record to 20-4, and in the process in the second game set the LSU career strikeout mark in just her freshman season with 171.
“Obviously the girls were ready to play,” said LSU Coach Glenn Moore. “I guess the thing I was most worried about was the girls being too tight and not being able to relax. We were able to jump on them early in game one and get those runs and let our pitcher relax a little bit. I’m really proud of them. The second game is a tough win and it shows the personality of this team. They never give up.”