BATON ROUGE — Coming off a series win over Mississippi State earlier this week, the fifth-ranked Tiger softball team will host a pivotal Southeastern Conference series with No. 24 South Carolina beginning with a doubleheader on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Tiger Park. Free tickets are available at all area Winn-Dixie stores.
The Tigers (21-7, 6-2 SEC) have never lost a three-game conference series since the league went to that format in 2001, winning 12 straight. Like the Tigers, South Carolina (21-8, 4-2 SEC) is coming off a series win over Mississippi State, taking the first two games, before falling 11-10 in extra innings in game three.
“This is another big series for us at home,” said LSU head coach Yvette Girouard. “We need to take advantage of playing at home while we can since we will be on the road the entire month of April in SEC play. This is going to be a nice weekend with good weather for excellent softball between two nationally ranked programs.”
Against Mississippi State, the Tigers exploded for 29 hits in the three game series. Senior Trena Peel led LSU with a 7-for-12 performance from the plate, including a triple and a home run and five runs scored.
Aleshia Perry improved her batting average to .321 this week with a 4-for-9 performance with two runs scored and one RBI. Christy Connor’s bat came alive as she went 4-for-12 with two doubles and a home run. She also knocked in four RBIs and scored two runs.
Senior All-American pitcher Britni Sneed improved her season record to 11-4 with a pair of victories over the Bulldogs. The reigning three-time LSWA Pitcher of the Week, Sneed struck out 22 in 14 innings with a complete-game shutout in game one of the series. With 163 strikeouts this season, she now has 1,055 career strikeouts and moved into 11th place in career strikeouts in NCAA history, passing Kelly Shipman of Maryland.
Last season, LSU won two-of-three games with South Carolina during the regular season in Columbia, S.C., taking games one and three. The Tigers also defeated the Gamecocks in the SEC Tournament championship game, 1-0, to win their second conference tournament title in three seasons.
Since the program began in 1997, LSU has lost only two SEC series. The Tigers last lost an SEC series in the season finale against Alabama in 1998, now going 31 straight without dropping a series. The Tigers have split seven other series with an SEC series record of 42-2-7.
The Capital Area Tigers will kick off the weekend with a “Tiger Tailgate Party” on Saturday. There will be a tailgating competition and prizes will be awarded to the winners chosen by member of the local media. The games on Saturday will be shown taped delayed on Baton Rouge cable channel 10 at 9 p.m. by the Pelican Sports Network.
The series will conclude on Sunday with a single game at 11 a.m. As part of the Capital Area Tigers’ “Circus Day”, there will be face painting, clowns, tiger tattoos and a moonwalk. The members of the LSU volleyball alumni team will also be introduced. Cox Communications will air the game on a taped delayed basis on Baton Rouge cable channel 4.