Every year, before LSU softball’s opener, head coach Beth Torina has players fill out their own lineup cards. This year will be the first without it.
Each player puts pen to parchment, detailing which of their closest friends should get the nod for a starting position and who shouldn’t. It shows the team how hard the decision making is and allows Torina to see how the players view each other, she said.
“I wanted them to realize how many good players are on this team,” Torina said. “And that if you are left out of a lineup, it’s because the person in front of you is really, really great, and sometimes your biggest battle of the whole year is right here on our own field and practice.”
After the 2024 softball season, LSU lost six starters to graduation and one to the transfer portal. The coaches really don’t know what to expect out of the young class taking the field. With how different the team looks going into the 2025 season, Torina will take a step back from this tradition.
“I think there is so much just left unknown this year, and so many people that are in the mix,” Torina said. “I don’t know if it’s a year where I have to have their opinions or I think so many people are so deserving.”
This is the first time the players won’t be filling out a lineup card for their own season.
With the tradition happening after the last practice before the opening game, the players give themselves an idea of what to expect on opening day. LSU broadcaster Lyn Rollins said that the majority of the 2022 softball team put freshman Mckenzie Redoutey in the starting lineup for the first game of the season.
Now a senior, Redoutey has hit .300 in her career in SEC play.
The team is expected to get better as the season goes on, more so than the teams of the past, Torina said, and they’re expected to grow a lot through the season. The players need some experience to grow together, and the best softball is in front of them and deeper in the season.
Torina also said there are so many moving parts to the team this season that it’s going to be difficult to get everyone to write a lineup down to keep the tradition going this season.
“I think it would take us two hours to sit down and have them write it, so we’re skipping it and we’re playing softball,” Torina said.
Infielder Sierra Daniel also said that this new era of LSU softball is going to be different. The team is trying to create their own narrative for the season with so much being unexpected from them.
“We’ve started, actually, saying, like ‘our story on three,’ because again, it is kind of a new little era,” Daniel said.
Torina said she’s ready to see the players handle the season and that they have solved all the problems they’ve seen in scrimmages. It is to be seen if the tradition will make a difference with this team of newcomers, as Torina expects them to grow through the season.
