Southeastern Conference softball is a competitive, hard-fought dog-fight week after week.
No. 8 LSU is one of nine top-25 squads from the league. Eleven of the 13 SEC teams have at least a 73 percent winning percentage — Mississippi State and Arkansas are the only teams below the mark.
“The people that understand how to fail are the people that succeed,” said LSU coach Beth Torina. “There’s a lot of great programs [in the SEC]. You’re going to struggle a lot of the time, but the people that can bounce back from it are the ones that are going to be good.”
But the Tigers (28-9, 5-7 SEC) will have a one-game reprieve when Southern Mississippi enters Tiger Park at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
The unranked Golden Eagles (18-20, 5-7 Conference USA) should prove to be a much easier opponent for an LSU squad that has faced four straight top-11 teams in each of the last four weekends. Southern Miss has been falling lately, dropping eight of its last 12 contest and has been outscored by ranked teams, 44-8, this season.
LSU enters the game hoping to see a spark in its offensive performance.
Since the Tigers dismantled Louisiana Tech, 30-8, on March 15, the team has been held to six runs or less in each of the 10 games. But the Golden Eagle hurlers may be the solution the Tiger hitters need.
The Southern Miss pitching staff has a 4.42 ERA, No. 198 in Division I. Sophomore Samantha Robles has taken up the mantle as the team’s ace, and even she is averaging a 3.48 ERA.
“They are a scrappy bunch,” said LSU assistant coach Howard Dobson. “They have three or four pitchers that throw in all different zones. They give you different looks. They don’t have huge [offensive numbers] but they stay in games.”
The LSU pitching staff will attempt to suppress an underwhelming Golden Eagle lineup that boasts just two hitters averaging above .300, among its starters. LSU’s rotation has allowed batters to maintain a .223 average and has a 1.95 ERA, the eighth best in Division I.
The matchup will be a reunion of sorts for Dobson, who worked as the Southern Miss head coach for four seasons before joining the LSU staff prior to the 2012 campaign.
“Anytime you get a chance to beat your [former teams] you want to take advantage of it,” Dobson said. “It’s nice to see the friendly faces that I know … But you want to take care of business against the people you just left.”
The Tigers will look to improve their record within the friendly confines of Tiger Park, where they are 20-5 on the year. The team is a perfect 6-0 in midweek games thus far and has outscored opponents 50-8 in those contests.
Sophomore pitchers Carley Hoover and Allie Walljasper have been almost exclusively weekend performers for the Tigers. Either junior Baylee Corbello or freshman Sydney Smith is likely to start in the circle for LSU.
Smith currently holds the nation’s third best ERA with a 0.86 and Corbello is the lone Tigers’ pitcher with flawless 5-0 record.
“We don’t overlook anybody,” said senior catcher Kellsi Kloss. “It’s nice to get out of conference play for one game a week to get reset and get a little bit of confidence back and just work on some things physically and technically.”