With the bases loaded in the bottom of the second inning, LSU sophomore outfielder Emily Griggs swung on a 3-1 pitch and grounded out.
Her grounder would give the No. 14 LSU softball team a 1-0 lead and brought much needed confidence for the Tigers’ offense.
Her out began a string of four-straight innings where LSU (34-13, 8-11 Southeastern Conference 8-11) scored a run en route to a 7-2 victory against South Carolina (32-14, SEC 8-11).
LSU coach Beth Torina said her team put an extra focus in practice to be more “productive” at the plate.
“We worked quite a bit on getting productive outs,” Torina said. “That’s one thing we’ve changed. We’ve reinforced them to just go up and do a job. The result of doing our job is we put a lot more runners in scoring position.”
LSU finished the game 5-for-13 with runners in scoring position, in which three of the runs the Tigers scored tonight came on ground outs after they had put runners on.
Griggs attributed the team’s offensive success to being “looser” than normal.
“This week we worked a lot on doing our job,” Griggs said. “We stopped pressing. We’re supposed to have fun out here. When you take the pressure off yourself and worry what you can do for the team, it makes it a little bit easier to produce runs and get runners on base.”
In total, the Tigers had nine hits tonight and were led by junior first baseman Sahvanna Jaquish, who got on base twice out of four plate appearances, and added three RBIs.
The Tigers cruised most of the way behind sophomore hurler Carley Hoover, LSU’s starting pitcher.
Five South Carolina batters struck out as the Gamecocks were only able to get two hits off of Hoover’s (13-6) arm.
Hoover said she used a combination of pitches to disable the Gamecocks’ bats, most of which were at the discretion of Torina.
“When I’m super hyped up I tend to over throw,” Hoover said. “I put the trust in the defense and threw some other pitches and tried getting them out in different ways. I think coach called a really good game.”
Torina, amid “Geaux Teal” week to fundraise for ovarian cancer, was more-than-pleased with tonight’s win to honor her mother — a five-year ovarian cancer survivor.
“It’s awesome,” Torina said. “With my mom being an ovarian cancer survivor and having her around. I can’t tell you how thankful I am. Not only is she here in Baton Rouge, but she’s here with us today to watch this game.”