The 2021 LSU Tiger Softball team finished the season last year with a loss in the Baton Rouge Super Regional against the Florida State Seminoles, who eventually went on to play the Oklahoma Sooners for the National Championship. That Super Regional is a series the Lady Tigers remember all too well.
“We have the whole FSU dogpile on our TVs,” said redshirt junior infielder Georgia Clark.
“The way last year ended it definitely put a spark under us,” said redshirt sophomore infielder Taylor Pleasants.
When you play in an emotional series like that and you come up short, you have two options. You can let it break you, or you can let it motivate you. The Lady Tigers have chosen to come back stronger.
“We’re going to go do weights and we’re going to do it to the best of our ability because maybe if we slacked off that one rep that might have been the difference between winning and losing,” said Pleasants.
“The way last year ended gives us the highest amount of motivation I think it was a really rough ending it was a tough pill to swallow. We saw so many opportunities where we could’ve had the last game go differently. I think we’re working every day to get opportunities like that back and make sure we take care of the ones that are in front of us,” said LSU Softball head coach Beth Torina.
The Lady Tigers had a very young team last year. They finished the season 35-22 with a team that had four Seniors and two Juniors. This means that 79% of that team is coming back this year. Led by Taylor Pleasants who finished last year with a .316 batting average, 12 doubles, 13 home runs, and 49 RBIs. Pleasants was recently named to the USA Softball Top 50 “Watch List”.
The Lady Tigers start the season ranked No. 14 in the USA TODAY Sports preseason poll and are picked to finish 6th in the 2022 SEC Softball Preseason Coaches Poll. LSU will open the 2022 season with the Tiger Classic, playing host to South Alabama, Illinois, and Central Arkansas on Feb. 11-13.