BATON ROUGE — LSU head coach Yvette Girouard will be going for her 100th win at LSU when the fifth-ranked Tigers travel to play Southern Miss in a doubleheader on Wednesday beginning at 5 p.m. at the Southern Miss Softball Complex in Hattiesburg, Miss.
All-American Britni Sneed earned her seventh LSWA Pitcher of the Week honor, it was announced on Tuesday. The senior went 4-0 last week with a pair of shutout victories. She threw her school-record third complete-game no-hitter of the season. In addition, she threw a two-hitter and a three-hitter and struck out 57 batters.
Having won 20 of their last 21 games, the Tigers (40-8) are coming off a Southeastern Conference series sweep of Kentucky and are currently riding a 10-game winning. Southern Miss (25-25) has not played since a doubleheader loss to LSU last week.
“As we approach the end of the regular season, these games against teams that are in our NCAA region become especially important for postseason seeding purposes,” said Girouard. “We got a pair of wins over Southern Miss last week and we will need to play well to defeat them again.
“Last week, we hit the ball extremely well in the first game and Britni got the no-hitter, but they shut us down offensively in the second game. We had to rely on Kristin’s pitching and our defense to win game two. We will have to be more productive with our bats if we want to come away with the victories.”
In just her second season at LSU, Girouard is poised to become the third Tiger coach to reach 100 wins, joining former LSU coaches Cathy Compton and Glen Moore.
She also has a chance to become the fastest coach to reach 100 wins in LSU’s history. If the Tigers defeat Southern Miss in game one, Girouard will hit the century mark in just 119 games. Moore accomplished the feat in 120 games, while Compton reached the 100-win mark in 126 games.
If the Tigers sweep the doubleheader, Girouard will pass Compton and become the second winningest head coach in LSU history. Compton completed her two-year stint as head coach from 1997-1998 with an overall record of 100-26.
In her 22nd season as a collegiate head coach, Girouard has compiled an overall record of 858-269 (.761), making her the seventh active winningest head coach in the nation and the fifth winningest active coach by percentage.
The Tiger pitching duo of All-Americans Britni Sneed and Kristin Schmidt lead the way for LSU as the Tigers boast the best earned run average in the SEC and the eighth best team ERA in the nation. Last week, Sneed and Schmidt led LSU to a perfect 7-0 record with a no-hitter and four shutouts.
LSU is the only program in the country that can boast two starting pitchers that rank in the top 25 in the NCAA in earned run average and strikeouts per seven innings.
The pair from Houston rank one-two in overall ERA and ERA in conference games in the SEC and both rank in the top 10 in wins, strikeouts and lowest opponents batting average in the league.
Sneed leads the way with a 22-5 record and 15 shutouts, one shy of the school record. In 15 league games, she is 14-1 and has allowed only nine runs, 7 of which were earned, for a 0.43 ERA.
She surpassed the 300-strikeout mark for the second straight year and moved into eighth place in NCAA history. Currently second in the nation in strikeout ratio, she averaged 13.8 strikeouts per seven innings last week to up her season average to 11.7 and had only one outing with less than 15 strikeouts and that was in a five-inning game.
Schmidt has also been up to the task for the Tigers, posting a 14-3 record with seven shutouts. She has 151 strikeouts this season and leads the team with a 0.92 ERA.
Last week, she went 3-0 with a pair of shutouts and a 0.00 ERA, allowing just one unearned run against Kentucky. She tied her season high with 14 strikeouts against Northwestern State and added 11 strikeouts against Southern Miss.
At the plate, Trena Peel nailed her 11th and 12th triples of the season last week against Southern Miss. The national leader in triples per game, the senior from Aurora, Colo., is second in the SEC in runs scored and leads the team in batting average, slugging percentage and stolen bases.
Coming on strong lately have been Erin Johnson and Christy Connor. Johnson has hit a team-leading .425 in April with eight RBIs, three doubles and a home run. The senior from Pascagoula, Miss., has improved her batting average from .250 at the end of March to .320, good enough for second on the team.
Connor has also hit .400 during the month of April. The junior from Katy, Texas, nailed five doubles last week to improve her team-leading total to 14 on the year, which ranks third in the SEC. She also knocked in five runs to give her the team lead with 31.
LSU will close out the month of April on the road at SEC-rival Ole Miss this weekend. The Tigers will face the Rebels in a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 5 p.m. and play a single game on Sunday at 1p.m.