The LSU softball team showcased a little bit of everything on Friday to take game one against Kentucky in its first Southeastern Conference weekend series.
Bunt singles, infield hits and doubles came left and right for the No. 13 Tigers as they tallied ten hits in a 7-1 win over the No. 17 Wildcats.
“This is probably one of my favorite offensive performances of the year, just because the kids truly bought into what we were asking them to do,” said LSU coach Beth Torina. “They made adjustments throughout the game. They scored in a lot of different ways. I just thought they were really awesome. I was impressed by them.”
LSU (21-5, 3-1 SEC) fell behind after the Wildcats (19-5, 2-2 SEC) grabbed a one-run lead in the first inning, but the Tigers answered in the bottom of the second inning, scoring two runs with two outs on an RBI double from junior third baseman Tammy Wray and an RBI single from Lauren Houston.
The Tigers struck again in the bottom of the third, collecting two more runs from freshman first baseman Sandra Simmons’ two-RBI double to left field.
LSU finished its scoring in the fifth, grabbing three runs to drive its lead to the final 7-1 mark. The first came on a play that might have been an LSU first.
After freshman catcher Kellsi Kloss singled to lead off the inning, pinch runner Alex Boulet stole second and advanced to third on a bunt single from Simmons.
With the speedy Boulet on third, Torina made the call for Wray, who is most often a power hitter, to lay down a squeeze bunt.
“When coach gave it to me, I had to take a deep breath because I’m pretty sure I’ve never done a squeeze bunt before in college,” Wray said. “Obviously with Boulet’s speed, I knew that as long as I could lay it down, she’d be safe.”
Wray did lay it down, and Boulet did score, which gave LSU a 5-1 cushion at the time. A.J. Andrews added two more runs on a double that scored Wray and junior outfielder Simone Heyward.
The winning pitcher, LSU senior ace Rachele Fico, pitched all seven innings, and trudged through a shaky start in the first inning only to finish with a dominant final six innings that carried the Tigers to an easy victory.
In the top of the first inning, Fico hit one batter and walked three more, which walked in the Wildcats’ only run of the day. She hit another batter in the second, but then Fico found her stride, retiring the next 16 batters without any reaching base.
Fico notched nine strikeouts in the game and in the process became one of only four LSU pitchers to reach 700 career strikeouts.
“I didn’t even realize that I was approaching that mark, honestly,” Fico said. “It’s an incredible honor to be able to wear the LSU jersey across my back, and to be in the great company of the players that have come before me, it’s really something special.”
Fico breezed through the middle innings, keeping her pitch count low and getting out of innings in short order, which Wray said gave the Tigers’ lineup added energy to produce multiple runs.
“It always feels good in a game when you find that your team is only on defense for a short period of time and every time you blink you feel like you’re in the dugout hitting again,” Fico said. “…Everyone gets in a rhythm that way, and it keeps everything going our way.”
LSU will be back for game two against Kentucky on Saturday with first pitch scheduled for 4 p.m.
