FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The No. 18 LSU softball team heads to Arkansas for a weekend series with the two teams separated by .007 percentage points for second place in the SEC Western Division. Friday’s doubleheader is set for 4 p.m. followed by a Saturday single-game at noon.
The Tigers (23-9-1, 8-5-1) hold a 37-7 all-time series edge and swept the Razorbacks during the final regular season series at the old Tiger Park last season.
Rachel Mitchell headlined the offense with a 6-for-7 effort with two home runs, four RBIs and five runs scored. Cody Trahan earned a trio of wins in the circle for the Tigers, including a pair of complete game shutouts during the season opener and series finale.
“Arkansas is playing extremely well and just beat Oklahoma on Wednesday,” head coach Yvette Girouard said. “We’ve ran into a little bit of a funk of offense. Hopefully, we can break out of it and play as the team is capable of playing this weekend.”
Kirsten Shortridge and Jazz Jackson anchor the top of the Tiger batting order. The duo is on six and seven game hitting streaks, respectively.
Shortridge’s .410 batting average is currently second highest in program for a single season only behind Ashlee Ducote’s .431 mark during the 2000 season.
Mitchell has knocked in 12 of her team-leading 24 RBIs over her last nine SEC games, while freshmen Ashley Langoni, Juliana Santos and Anissa Young are tied for second on the team with 17 RBIs apiece.
In the circle, Brittany Mack has won eight consecutive decisions over her last 16 outings. She fired three innings of one-hit relief and racked up six strikeouts at Nicholls.
Trahan has gone 6-3 after starting the season with six no-decisions. She pitched 5.2 innings and scattered three runs on six hits during LSU’s 3-3 tie against Tennessee.
“We’ve worked as hard as we could in the limited time that we had preparing the pitchers for this series,” Girouard said. “It’s more about hitting your spots and not making mistakes at critical times.”
All three games of the Arkansas series will be live on The X 104.5 and 104.9 FM in the Baton Rouge area. Patrick Wright and Matt Dunaway are set to call all of the action and live stats also are available on LSUSports.net. Saturday’s game is televised live on CST.