The eighth-ranked LSU softball team hosts Jackson State at 5:30 p.m. today in a doubleheader at Tiger Park.
LSU head coach Yvette Girouard expects many Tigers to get an opportunity to play because of the great gap of talent between LSU and JSU.
“It’s an opportunity to play an opponent that hopefully a lot of people will get to play in the game, and people can feel relaxed and enjoy themselves,” Girouard said. “It’s an opponent that we should certainly run-rule. We just have so much more talent.”
The two teams met twice earlier this season in the Purple and Gold Challenge as LSU won both games by scores of 19-0 in five innings and 9-1 in six innings. Both games ended short of seven innings due to the eight-run rule.
Girouard said the Tigers were preoccupied the last time they played JSU. The Tigers led JSU by a 2-1 score until the sixth inning when LSU erupted for seven runs to run-rule JSU, 9-1.
Girouard wants LSU to play with intensity tonight in preparation for this weekend’s Southeastern Conference showdown with No. 11 Georgia.
“There can be nothing lapsidaisical about this week because we’re going to face a tremendous Georgia team that is just waiting for us,” Girouard said.
LSU sophomore Tessa Lynam led the team batting and in the circle in both games. Lynam went 5-for-7 at the plate against JSU with six RBIs and six runs scored. She also pitched two complete games, including a five inning no-hitter with 11 strikeouts and a six inning, three-hitter allowing one run with nine strikeouts.
Kristin Schmidt will pitch the first game of the doubleheader, while Lynam is slated for the nightcap. Schmidt earned the Louisiana Sports Writer’s Association Pitcher of the Week award. The junior pitched 18.2 innings and had an 0.00 ERA with a 1-1 record against Nicholls State and South Carolina last week.