BATON ROUGE – The No. 15 LSU softball team fell in game three of the series against Ole Miss 9-4 Saturday afternoon in Tiger Park. The Tigers are 21-12 on the season and 6-6 in the SEC while Ole Miss moves to 22-13 on the season and 6-6 in the SEC. 

The Tigers take on Louisiana Tech Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Tiger Park for a midweek match up. The game will be on SEC Network+ and will be available via live stats. 

Ole Miss scored first on a solo homerun over the left field wall in the first inning to take an early 1-0 lead over the Tigers. The Rebels added another run in the third inning with a solo shot to extend their lead 2-0 over the Tigers. 

In the bottom of the fourth, Georgia Clark and Amanda Doyle both singled to left field to put two runners on. Karrington Houshmandzadeh entered at second to pinch run for Clark and Raeleen Gutierrez crushed a double to deep centerfield to plate Houshmandzadeh and Doyle, evening the score at two. 

Ole Miss scored two more runs off of three hits and a Tiger miscue to take a 4-2 lead in the middle of the fifth. LSU answered with one run in the bottom of the fifth on an Aliyah Andrews single that drove in Ciara Briggs, 4-3. 

In the bottom of the sixth Gutierrez doubled to the right-center gap, Shelbi Sunseri walked to put runners on first and second. Both runners were able to advance on a passed ball and Briggs dropped a single in short centerfield to plate Gutierrez from third, tying the game at four. 

The two teams were tied at four after seven innings and headed into extra innings. In the top of the eighth, the Rebels scored five runs to extend their lead to 9-4 over the Tigers. 

Shelbi Sunseri took the loss in the circle moving to 6-4 on the season, Maribeth Gorsuch who started the game in the circle for the Tigers tallied five strikeouts in her four innings of work.

 Gutierrez was 3-for-4 at the plate for the Tigers with three doubles, one run scored and two RBI. The last time a Tiger recorded three doubles in a game was back in 2019 when Amanda Sanchez did it against Tulsa. Briggs was 2-for-4 with one run scored and one RBI, and Doyle went 2-for-4 with a run scored.

Torina’s Thoughts

Feelings on a loss like this …

“It is frustrating, without question. I think we didn't execute some things at times that would have led to us winning but I still think we played well this weekend and I think we definitely have something to build on.”

On Raeleen Gutierrez and how she is coming to her own …

“She's a great hitter. We just had to figure out how to get her at bats. So now that we've been able to do some things in her lineup and do some things with the depth of our personnel. Just getting her consistent and that's going to prove to be really good for us.”

On what the team can work on before the next game …

“I think we're continuing to grow and we're doing a lot of things well, so we'll just keep building. We have Louisiana Tech on Tuesday night which will be a good opportunity for us to keep working, keep building just keep having consistent at bats making quality pitches and solid defense.”