The No. 14 LSU softball team couldn’t complete the series sweep against Ole Miss and fell to the Revels in the series finale, 3-1.
The Tigers and the Rebels were scoreless for nearly all of last Saturday night’s game, and that was almost the case Sunday afternoon as neither team produced a run for the first five innings.
The Rebels scored all three runs in the top of the sixth inning as center fielder Kylan Becker doubled to left field to lead off the inning. Two plays later, Rebel first baseman Brittany Finney reached second on a throwing error from Tiger sophomore first baseman Amanda Doyle, allowing  Becker to score.
Designated player Celeste Wood and second baseman Bry Castro scored unearned runs for the Rebels as the inning went on.
“It’s tough,” Doyle said. “That one inning is what did it for us. We just needed better defense, but we still got the series win, so that’s a positive.”
In the very next inning, Doyle produced the Tigers’ only run of the game by hitting her sixth home run of the year in a lead off position.
Sophomore pitcher Maribeth Gorsuch started in the circle for LSU and retired nine straight batters to start the game. Senior Carley Hoover came on in relief for Gorsuch in the top of the sixth inning to attempt to minimize any damage made by the Rebels.
Despite her pitching struggles late in the game, Gorsuch was proud of her defense for staying behind her and having a lot of talent in the bullpen.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Allie Walljasper,” Gorsuch said. “For what she did on Friday night, I thought that was just outstanding. Last night, Carley performed so well. I’m just very proud of the staff and how they did things.”
LSU coach Beth Torina was also confident that her pitchers would regroup and make the necessary improvements heading into the next game.
“I think that they did a great job,” Torina said. “They were solid all weekend long.”
All of LSU’s pitchers combined for 27 strikeouts throughout the weekend and Ole Miss’ Kaitlin Lee struck out 14 batters in two of the three games.
“She has good spin and is a good pitcher,” Doyle said. “It gets out of her hands quickly, and that showed. We got jammed a lot, but we started to adjust toward the end.”
The Tigers have another road test for next weekend as they travel to Knoxville to take on No. 8 Tennessee. Their first game will be on Friday at 5 p.m.