After LSU softball had a rough two weeks in Texas, the LSU fans have been quick to attack head coach Beth Torina for multiple reasons, some unwarranted.
Fans have said it’s time for her to go because of how LSU has finished in regular-season SEC play lately. They have complained that she doesn’t know when to change pitchers and gets too obsessed with her ace pitcher to know when she’s done. Some fans have said she is simply too complacent to coach at a top school like LSU.
The biggest issue most recently was the play between LSU second baseman and designated player Maddox McKee and Texas’s first baseman during Game 1 of the series. McKee hit a bloop single in the top of the sixth inning, and when she rounded first base, first baseman Joley Mitchell was standing in the baseline. McKee collided with Mitchell at full force, knocking her over.
Mitchell took to TikTok to say that McKee apologized right after it happened and that she reached out to her after the series, and they talked it out. Mitchell even said she was standing in the baseline and it was obstruction.
Another reason many fans have said it’s time for Torina to go is because of her team’s standings in SEC play in the last several years. However, the Tigers aren’t the only team with these standings.
The “golden era” of Torina’s tenure at LSU softball is considered to be 2015-2017, which coincides with the Carley Hoover and Allie Walljasper era. During those three seasons, the Tigers finished 15-9, 13-11 and 12-12. During these three seasons, LSU ended up finishing its season in Oklahoma City.
LSU has not performed much better during those three seasons than in future seasons. The best season following this era was 2019, when they were tied for second for the regular season SEC title. In 2019, the Tigers finished 14-10 in SEC play, but were tied for second with Tennessee and Kentucky.
But LSU isn’t the only SEC team that barely beats .500. In the last several years, unless a school outright wins the SEC or is in second place by a small margin, every team is fighting to stay above .500.
In 2024, the Tigers were tied for fifth with Georgia and Mississippi State but were right at .500. The teams below them were SEC powerhouses like Alabama, Kentucky, and Ole Miss.
The fact that LSU has tied with so many different teams in many different places for season standings shows the unpredictability of softball in the SEC. It isn’t just LSU that has been scattered all over the SEC regular season standings.
Fans like to argue that Torina uses her ace too much, but most fans don’t realize that softball isn’t exactly like baseball. There are a lot of similarities between the sports, but softball pitching is less physically demanding on the body, which means a pitcher can throw as much as they want throughout a weekend.
If Sydney Berzon is LSU’s most effective pitcher, and she can safely throw every single pitch of the weekend, there is no reason she can’t do that. Torina has always spoken highly of Berzon, saying she is one of the best pitchers she’s ever coached.
“At the end of the day, we have a Sydney Berzon,” Torina said in a preseason press conference. “We’ll stay in every ballgame you put us in. I think she is just the best in the country, in my opinion. I think she’s the best of the best, so as long as we have 29 out there we’re going to be in every ballgame you put us in.”
Torina’s logic is simple: If Berzon is LSU’s best pitcher, then why should she not use her in high-pressure moments?
Have there been moments when this has fallen flat? Yes, and these moments have come as early as Berzon’s freshman year, but when these moments have led to a winning game, fans have never complained.
In Game 2 in Austin, Torina put Berzon in to close the game once Clopton got in trouble. LSU won the game, so there were no complaints. When the same thing happened in Game 3, fans were livid.
Berzon’s arsenal is very similar to what Torina threw as a pitcher at Florida in the late ‘90s. Beth loved to change speeds and move the ball up and down when she was in the circle, which is very similar to Berzon’s game.
Torina also said that Berzon hasn’t shaken her off in two and a half years, which speaks volumes to how well Torina can call for Berzon. Maybe this could lead to the trust Torina has in her ace of staff.
Other fans have complained that Torina is too complacent to coach at a top school like LSU, and that is not the case. Each team since the golden Era of LSU softball has threatened and had the ability to make it to the Women’s College World Series. Only two of the past six teams haven’t made it to a super regional, and only two of those four super regional appearances haven’t made it to a game three.
Torina isn’t complacent; fans don’t realize how finicky the diamond sports are. It is hard to turn out several teams in a row that are as lock down as one graduating class could be. It happened to the Tigers after the Hoover and Walljasper era, and it’s also happening now to Oklahoma this season after their super class graduated in 2024.
The SEC is the hardest conference to compete in for a reason, but this Tigers team has shown that they compete with the best. The goal is not to be ranked No. 1 on selection day, it’s to be the last team standing.
Torina doesn’t need to be fired, she needs one team to redeem what she built during the golden era.
