BATON ROUGE — The fourth-ranked LSU softball team heads to Knoxville, Tenn., this weekend for a three-game series with Southeastern Conference foe Tennessee.
The weekend set has a doubleheader slated for Saturday beginning at Noon and a Sunday game at Noon as well.
The Tigers (18-5, 3-0 SEC) have won six straight, including a series sweep over Florida this past weekend. The Lady Vols (27-9-1, 4-2) swept Ole Miss over the weekend as LSU and Tennessee were the only two teams undefeated in the conference after the opening weekend.
However, since then, the Lady Vols have suffered a pair of losses to No. 21 Georgia. The two teams split a doubleheader on Wednesday and with the Bulldogs taking the rubber match on Thursday afternoon, 6-3.
Leading the Tigers into battle will be the 1-2 combination of pitchers Britni Sneed and Kristin Schmidt. Sneed has thrown a shutout in her last five starts while Schmidt has the best record on the team at 7-1.
Last weekend Sneed, the current SEC Pitcher of the Week, became just the 12th player in NCAA history to reach the 1,000 career strikeout mark. She is the second person in the SEC to accomplish the feat, behind South Carolina’s Trinity Johnson.
“I think you can tell it is SEC time. She seems to be pumped and ready and she certainly is throwing much better than earlier in the year,” said LSU coach Yvette Girouard. “We need her to be better because everyone in this conference is much better, including this Tennessee team.”
LSU’s bats have also begun to come around as of late as the Tigers are hitting .282 as a team and have four players hitting over.300. Led by Trena Peel’s .375 mark, all but one starter hits better than .250. With the batting averages rising, LSU’s run production is up to an average of 6.3 runs in its past five games.
“The bats are starting to pick up a little bit. We need three people to catch fire with the pitching we have and the defense we have been playing,” said Girouard.
Julie Wiese has also been on a tear recently, hitting .571 in her last nine games.
“Wiese is steady as she can be. Her home run numbers are a little down this year, but so are her strikeouts and we worked on that,” noted Girouard. “She is seeing the ball well and getting us timely hits.”