HAMMOND, La. – The Southeastern Louisiana softball team will return home to host No. 11 LSU on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at North Oak Park.
The game between the Lady Lions (19-20) and the visiting Tigers (29-12) will be televised live on Cox Sports Television. It will also be available via ESPN3 in areas outside of the CST viewing area. Live stats will be available at
www.LionSports.net.
Southeastern will be looking to "Flood the Field" versus LSU, as the first 200 SLU students in attendance will receive a free t-shirt and food courtesy of Southeastern Athletics Marketing and Promotions.
Wednesday will also feature a Cane's Challenge. If the Lady Lions score two runs or more, fans can take their game ticket or student coupon to participating Raising Cane's to receive a free combo with the purchase of another of equal or greater value.
Southeastern enters Wednesday's game with a .280 team batting average. Senior
Katie Lacour leads the team with a .419 batting average, a Southland Conference-high 54 hits and 36 runs scored. Sophomore
Kinsey Nichols is right behind Lacour in all three categories (.417, 48 hits, 28 runs scored).
Senior
Amber Sather provides the power to the Lady Lion lineup with four home runs and 34 runs batted in. Sather and junior
Mychal Truxillo share the team lead with seven doubles. Truxillo (18 RBI), Nichols (18 RBI) and sophomore
Brittney Wingate (2 HR, 14 RBI) are the other RBI leaders for SLU.
The Lady Lions are up to second in the nation with 116 stolen bases as a team. Lacour is all second in Division I with 40 steals, as she, Nichols (24) and freshman
Jaquelyn Ramon (22) occupy the top three spots in the Southland stolen base rankings and all three have topped the single-season school record heading into this season.
Lacour has etched her name into the Southeastern record books as the school's career leader with 257 hits, 135 runs and 52 stolen bases. Sather is the SLU all-time record holder with 130 RBI and 127 walks.
Senior
Taylor Bishop (11-11, 3.16 ERA, 2 saves) has handled more than half of the innings for a Southeastern pitching staff that has a 4.08 team ERA. Freshman
Caitlyn VanHemelryck (3-3, 3.26 ERA), senior
Madison Vige' (1-2, 5.29 ERA), freshman
Peyton Pigniolo (3-2, 5.44 ERA) and junior
Kasey Nielson (1-2, 8.79 ERA) comprise the rest of the staff.
The Lady Lion pitchers will be charged with slowing down an LSU lineup that is hitting .322 as a team with all of its primary starters hitting above .300. Bianka Bell leads the team with a .355 batting average. Sahvanna Jaquish (10 HR, 39 RBI), Kellsi Kloss (9 HR, 36 RBI) and Bianka Bell (7 HR, 41 RBI) have the best power numbers for the Tigers.
The LSU pitching staff comes to Hammond with a 1.90 team ERA. Carley Hoover (11-5, 2.38 ERA), Allie Walljasper (6-5, 1.68 ERA), Sydney Smith (7-2, 0.86 ERA) and Baylee Corbello (5-0, 2.59 ERA) have all seen significant action in the circle for the Tigers.
Wednesday's game starts a six-game home stand for Southeastern. The Lady Lions welcome Central Arkansas for a three-game series this week at North Oak Park. The series opens with a 3 p.m. doubleheader on Friday.
