The No. 13 LSU softball team split the second day of the LSU Invitational tournament, as No. 10 Minnesota shutdown the Tiger offense in game two.
The Tigers (16-4) defeated Illinois 3-0 in game one and fell 3-0 to Minnesota.
Game two turned out to be a pitcher’s duel as LSU junior Carley Hoover allowed seven hits and Minnesota senior Sara Groenewegen allowed three hits.
“It’s gonna be difficult, she’s going to throw great pitches,” senior infielder Constance Quinn said. “That’s what every great pitcher does, so we just have to see the ball, hit the ball.”
Groenewegen, an All-American pitcher, proved to be challenge for a normally explosive offense.
“When you go into games and you’re not used to striking out, you’re not used to not getting a hit or not making something happen on the offense level, it is frustrating,” Quinn said. “But you can’t be afraid to fail, you can’t be afraid to take those big hacks. I think we’re going to learn from that.”
Hoover started in the circle with had nine strikeouts and four walks.
Minnesota’s offense struck early in the fourth inning, as an RBI double by freshman MaKenna Partain and a sacrifice fly by Groenewegen put them up 2-0.
The Gophers added another run in the sixth inning on Hoover’s wild pitch to extend the lead to 3-0.
Despite the loss, Hoover saw this as one of her better pitched games this season. LSU coach Beth Torina said that emotionally, it was her best game of the season.
“There’s always places to improve,” Hoover said. “I think, me personally, I can take a step from here and just keep building on it. As for the team, we really stepped up the energy there in the late innings, but we just have to find that earlier.”
Torina wasn’t disappointed in the loss, though.
“As long as we learn from this game, I think down the stretch it doesn’t hurt us truthfully,” Torina said. “I think as long as we’re getting better from a loss like this then we’ll be in good shape when it matters. We’re not playing for March, we’re playing for April, May and June.”
Junior pitcher Allie Walljasper shutout Illinois’ offensive in game one, recording two strikeouts and no walks through seven innings.
“What always impresses me about Allie is that you’ll never know if she’s having a great day, a bad day, if like her pet just died, Allie is always the same,” Hoover said. “Allie competes. Allie has a consistency that everyone can rely on.”
Neither team had much success offensively though, as Walljasper and Illinois pitcher Breanna Wonderly only allowed five hits and six hits respectively.
“I think she did a good job,” Torina said. “I think she kept them [batters] off balance. I thought we played good defense behind her, made one mistake, but overall played good defense behind her. It was a good game.”
Both teams remained scoreless until the fifth inning when the Tigers’ offense exploded.
Walljasper led off the inning with a walk and Quinn came up with a double to put runners on second and third with no outs.
“It felt great just to get back where i needed to be for the team and to help us lead,” Quinn said.
Two outs later, senior infielder Sahvanna Jaquish walked to load the bases where freshman first baseman Amanda Doyle hit a two-run RBI double to put the Tigers up 2-0
Freshman infielder Sydney Springfield drove in the the final run for the Tigers with another RBI single.
LSU will face Florida Atlantic at 1:00 p.m. and Troy at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday to end the LSU Invitational.
