BATON ROUGE — After winning its third consecutive Southeastern Conference Championship, the LSU Tiger softball team moves up to third place in the USA Today/NFCA Division I poll on Wednesday and will meet Auburn on Thursday night at the SEC Tournament in Chattanooga,Tenn.
“It is a good day for the LSU softball program,” said head coach Yvette Girouard. “This is our highest ranking in the history of the program. We are definitely among the elite in the world of softball. The key this weekend is to go out and defend our ranking.”
No. 3 is the highest ranking received by the LSU softball program. The first game is set for 7 p.m. CT and will be carried live by the LSU Sports Network on 107.3 FM and over the Internet at www.LSUsports.net.
The Tigers are 12-4 all-time at the SEC Tournament and have earned the No. 1 seed for the past three seasons. LSU has made an appearance in the Championship game on Sunday the last two years.
LSU won the SEC Tournament in 1999 after going undefeated. Ashley Lewis was named the Tournament MVP, and three other Tigers were named to the All-Tournament Team. In history, 11 Tigers have been named to the SEC Tournament Team.
LSU is 17-3 all-time against Auburn, 1-1 against them in Tournament play. Auburn and LSU open the tournament in the same position they did a year ago — same time, same seeds, but a different place.
It was May 11, 2000 when Auburn and LSU met in the final game of the first day of the SEC Tournament at South Commons Stadium in Columbus, Ga. LSU was the No. 1 seed and Auburn was the No. 8 seed then also.
LSU won the contest 8-0 with Britni Sneed pitching five innings of shutout-ball. She allowed only two hits and struck out seven.
The top three hitters in LSU’s order, Dee Douglas, Stephanie Hastings and former-Tiger Tara Asbill were 7-of-10 from the plate, scoring two runs with three RBI and four stolen bases. Jennifer Schuelke had a bases-clearing triple as the Tigers scored four in the first and ended the game with one out in the fifth.
The LSU Tigers recently took two games form Auburn over the weekend. Sneed pitched a complete-game, 9-0, shutout to run her SEC record to 18-0. LSU won game two 6-3 before falling to Auburn, 7-3, in the final game. LSU’s Trena Peel had three home runs for the weekend and Hastings was right behind her with two.
LSU will play at either 1 p.m. or 7 p.m. on Friday pending Thursday’s outcome.