Senior Killian Roessner said she cannot point to any one reason why LSU’s softball team has gone through a recent slump. “There’s nine to 10 people that get to go out there and get to be a part of the action,” Roessner said. “It’s never any one thing.” But she did have a solution for the Tigers to get out of the slide. “We basically need to start a new season,” Roessner said. “We need to start fresh … and forget about everything that just happened.” LSU will get a chance at that “new season” tonight against Nicholls State at Tiger Park after a disappointing weekend against Ole Miss. The Tigers lost a series to the Rebels for the first time ever this past weekend. They split a doubleheader Saturday with the Rebels and lost the finale, 2-0, Sunday. The team remained second in the Southeastern Conference Western Division but fell to fourth in the overall in-league standings. Ole Miss was 17-23 on the season and 1-16 in conference play before playing LSU. Roessner said the team played “flat” against Ole Miss. “We were just missing the fight that we always have,” Roessner said. “There’s no excuse for that.” The team has not won a weekend series since March 21 and 22 against Auburn. They were swept in consecutive road series by No. 3 Florida and No. 2 Alabama before losing two of three to Ole Miss. Senior shortstop Tayl’r Hollis said the team is playing on “different levels” right now instead of playing together. “Our defense, our pitching, our hitting … it all needs to come together,” Hollis said. “We’re all struggling. Usually it’s one person struggling, or maybe just two, and everybody else is picking that person up.” LSU coach Yvette Girouard said she is confident the team can pull out of its recent slide. “I’ve seen teams do this before that really turned it on at the end and made up for a lot of things,” Girouard said. “That’s what we’ve got to concentrate on now.” Hollis said the team can use the Nicholls State game to “tweak” their recent problems. “We need to take [this] game like we’re playing against Tennessee,” Hollis said. “We’re all very disappointed in ourselves right now, and we’re all trying to figure out what we need to do to get back on top of our game.” The Tigers have struggled to get across the plate in their past three SEC weekend series, especially in the second and third games of the series. They collected 50 hits in those games but scored only 19 runs. “We’re not shutting people out, but you can’t win if you never touch home plate,” Girouard said. “We’ve just had some brain-dead moments where we weren’t locked in, and it has cost us some runs.” Girouard said usual pitching starters junior Dani Hofer and sophomore Cody Trahan will not play against Nicholls State. She plans to give senior Tiffany Garcia and freshman Casey Faile most of the work against the Colonels. The Tigers have two midweek games and three weekend series remaining in the regular season. LSU will host the SEC tournament May 8-10 at Tiger Park.
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