Tag: Beth Torina

LSU softball announces addition of 3 veteran transfers

Beth Torina has reloaded the roster after quite a few big names left this offseason.

It’s going to be a changing of the guard for LSU softball entering the 2025 season.

Star pitcher [autotag]Sydney Berzon[/autotag] returns. However, many big names, including [autotag]Taylor Pleasants[/autotag], [autotag]Ciara Briggs[/autotag] and [autotag]Ali Newland[/autotag], will not. Coach [autotag]Beth Torina[/autotag] turned to the transfer portal in search of experience and succeeded.

Earlier this week, LSU announced the addition of three transfers: infielder [autotag]Avery Hodge[/autotag] (Oklahoma), outfielder [autotag]Jalia Lassiter[/autotag] (Ole Miss) and pitcher [autotag]Ashley Vallejo[/autotag] (McNeese).

Hodge was a member of the Sooners’ last two national title-winning teams, batting .284 this past season with six extra-base hits and nine RBIs. Lassiter was Ole Miss’ leader in hits in 2024 with a .314 average, four home runs and 29 RBIs.

Unlike Hodge and Lassiter, who have two remaining years of eligibility, Vallejo is a graduate transfer. In four years at McNeese, she went 45-24 on the mound with a 2.44 ERA and 306 strikeouts in 416 2/3 career innings.

After leading the Tigers to three consecutive Women’s College World Series appearances and four in her first six seasons, Torina is looking to return to Oklahoma City for the first time since 2017 after a super regional exit this spring.

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Sydney Berzon named LSWA Pitcher of the Year

Sydney Berzon headlines the six Tigers players who were honored by the LSWA on the All-Louisiana teams.

After a fantastic sophomore season at LSU, softball’s [autotag]Sydney Berzon[/autotag] has been named the Louisiana Sports Writers Association Pitcher of the Year in the state.

Berzon was also an All-American this season and last, finishing 2024 with a 20-9 record and 1.78 ERA while striking out 185 batters. Her play also earned her First Team All-Louisiana honors for the second year in a row.

She’s joined on the First Team by shortstop [autotag]Taylor Pleasants[/autotag], outfielder [autotag]Ciara Briggs[/autotag] and utlitily [autotag]Kelley Lynch[/autotag]. On the Second Team, outfielder Ali Newland was the only Tiger who made the cut though [autotag]Raeleen Gutierrez[/autotag] earned an honorable mention at first base.

The Tigers are certainly poised for a changing of the guard after this season. Of these six players, only Berzon is set to return in 2025. There will be a lot of new pieces for coach [autotag]Beth Torina[/autotag], but she’ll hope to find a core as talented as this one.

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LSU softball signee named MaxPreps Player of the Year

The future of LSU softball looks bright with Jayden Heavener on board.

One of the top signees in [autotag]Beth Torina[/autotag]’s 2024 [autotag]LSU softball recruiting[/autotag] class has added another award to her trophy case.

[autotag]Jayden Heavener[/autotag], a left-handed pitcher from Pace, Florida, has been recognized as the [autotag]MaxPreps Player of the Year[/autotag] for her accomplishments at Pace High School last season. Heavener put up video game-type numbers during her senior season. She appeared in 27 games for the Pace Patriots and pitched a total of 142 innings.

She finished the season with a 25-2 record and a 0.44 ERA. Yes, you read that right. Her ERA was below one. She struck out 322 hitters and walked 28 as hitters had a batting average of .068 against her. In the state championship game against Bartow, Heavener pitched a complete game (seven innings) and only gave up two hits as she struck out 16 hitters and did not walk anyone as she led her team to a 2-0 win. She even hit the two-run homer that scored both runs in that game.

The future of LSU softball looks bright.

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LSU softball’s Sydney Berzon earns All-American honors

Sydney Berzon was honored by multiple publications after a fantastic sophomore season.

LSU softball’s 2024 campaign, which began with a 24-0 record, came to a frustrating end in the Stanford Super Regional on Sunday. After taking Game 1, the Tigers dropped the final two as coach [autotag]Beth Torina[/autotag] is still seeking her first Women’s College World Series appearance since reaching three in a row from 2015-17.

However, not much of the blame for the way the season ended can be placed on [autotag]Sydney Berzon[/autotag]. Despite her Game 3 struggles against the Cardinal, Berzon is a major reason the Tigers reach the super regionals in the first place.

After earning NFCA All-American and Second Team All-SEC honors in 2023 as a true freshman, Berzon was even better as a sophomore this season. For her efforts, she’s been named an All-American by D1Softball and Softball America.

Berzon finished her sophomore campaign with a 1.78 ERA and a 20-9 record. She struck out 185 batters and walked just 46 while pitching more than 200 innings.

The LSU softball team has to replace a lot of veteran outgoing talent this coming offseason, but the return of Berzon as the top pitcher on the staff should ease that transition as the Tigers will seek to end their WCWS drought in 2025.

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Inconsistency remains the fatal flaw for LSU softball as season ends in Stanford Super Regional

Pressure is mounting on LSU softball as another year passes without a Women’s College World Series appearence.

LSU softball dropped a decisive Game 3 in the Stanford Super Regional on Sunday, bringing the Tigers’ 2024 season to a close. The loss marked a sixth-straight year without a trip to the Women’s College World Series.

The three-game super regional was representative of how this year played out for Beth Torina’s group. LSU looked like one of the best teams in the country on Friday night after opening the series with an 11-1 win. The Tigers looked like the team that began the year 24-0.

But the final two games resembled the back half of the season. Good pitching kept LSU in the game late, but the offense didn’t have the juice to get it done.

LSU began the postseason outscoring opponents 29-2 over its first four games. In the final two losses, LSU didn’t plate a single run and was outscored 11-0. 2024 was a tale of two teams.

At its best, LSU could beat anyone in the country. The offense put up six runs against NiJaree Canady — the nation’s ERA leader — on Friday night. If LSU can score against her, it can score against anyone. Earlier this year, LSU upset Texas, the No. 1 team in America.

I’m not just saying this team had the potential to compete with the best. It did compete with the best. That’s why it’s a shame we won’t get to see this team compete in Oklahoma City, but it was a matter of consistency or lack thereof that got us to this point.

That’s been the story of the last six years for LSU. Following three straight WCWS appearances from 2015-17, LSU has struggled to get back to that point. The super regional win on Friday was LSU’s first since picking up a game against Florida State in 2018, a series it eventually lost. Last year, LSU didn’t make it out of the regional after dropping a Game 7 in Tiger Stadium to in-state rival UL Lafayette.

That’s not the standard Torina set for this program when she took them to back-to-back-to-back WCWS. I’m sure she’d be the first to say that.

Next year, the path won’t get any easier. Softball powerhouses Oklahoma and Texas are joining the conference. LSU, one of the country’s most experienced groups in 2024, will be tasked with replacing some of the program’s most productive players. All of that doesn’t bode for much optimism in 2025.

Torina’s job is safe, and it should be. She’s won 665 career games in 13 years with LSU and the Tigers’ are perennially in the top 25. Her pitching staffs are among the nation’s best year in and year out and she’s responsible for four of LSU’s six WCWS appearances.

But this program needs to find consistency. When Torina’s program was at its peak, 2015-17, it wasn’t just the pitching getting it done. Sahvanna Jaquish, Bianka Bell and Bailey Landry provided the LSU lineup with some serious pop. LSU’s struggled to find the same offensive star power since.

With key veterans on the way out, LSU will hit a reset button. The lineup will be full of new faces next year. That means LSU has a chance to find that offensive slugging it once had. LSU needs more hitters it trusts to come through in big moments against pitchers like Canady, likes the ones it’ll see every week in the SEC.

LSU doesn’t need to make the WCWS every year, but six years is a long time for a program of this level to not play in OKC. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be competing at the top of the SEC, especially when it’s proven it has the talent to do so.

There aren’t many places around the country where fans have the bandwidth to care about football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, gymnastics and softball. Four of those six programs have won national titles in the last five years with men’s basketball and softball the only two without won.

In Baton Rouge, if your program has the relative resources to win a national title, that’s what the fans expect. That can be a blessing and a curse. The pressure is mounting on the program to get back to where it was six years ago.

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LSU falls to Stanford in Game 2 of super regional

LSU couldn’t carry over its offensive performance from Friday as the Tigers dropped Game 2.

After an offensive explosion in Game 1, LSU softball failed to conjure up the same fireworks in Game 2. Stanford’s NiJaree Canady had a season-worst performance on Friday but returned to ace form on Saturday evening.

Canady held LSU hitless through four and when the Tigers got runners on late, the lineup couldn’t cash in. Canady, who led the nation in ERA entering the super regional, made the clutch pitches to preserve the shutout.

For most of the night, LSU’s [autotag]Kelley Lynch[/autotag] went pitch for pitch with Canady. But Stanford got to Lynch in the fourth when Taryn Kern and Kyran Chan notched back-to-back extra base hits. Stanford seized momentum and added two insurance runs in the seventh, but Lynch stuck it out and completed the game.

Lynch allowed seven hits and struck out three on the night.

On offense, LSU threatened Canady a few times. The Tigers’ lineup brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, but the timely hits weren’t there.

[autotag]Ciara Briggs[/autotag] and [autotag]Ali Newland[/autotag] were the only Tigers to record hits on Saturday night while Lynch drew a couple of walks.

Torina and LSU will look to win the decisive game three on Sunday to clinch its first Women’s College World Series appearance since 2017. With Canady making back-to-back starts, pitching depth could be on LSU’s side entering Sunday, but the lineup will have to deliver.

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LSU softball shut out in Game 2 of Stanford Super Regional

LSU will face Stanford in a decisive Game 3 on Sunday night.

After turning in one of its best offensive performances in Game 1 of the Stanford Super Regional on Friday night, the LSU softball team was shut out in a 3-0 loss in Game 2 on Saturday.

Now, coach Beth Torina’s team faces Stanford in a winner-takes-all Game 3 on Sunday.

It was a low-scoring game in which hits were hard to come by for the Tigers. The Cardinal also struggled offensively against [autotag]Kelley Lynch[/autotag], but they did manage a couple of runs on RBI doubles in the third and seventh innings. It also added a run on an RBI single in the seventh.

LSU, meanwhile, couldn’t do much of anything against NiJaree Canady after shelling her in Game 1 on Friday. It totaled just two hits in the loss.

The Tigers will play for their season on Sunday night at 8:30 p.m. CT.

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Coach Beth Torina frustrated LSU softball isn’t hosting a super regional

LSU’s RPI ranks fourth nationally, leading the SEC entering the postseason.

LSU had the benefit of hosting this weekend in the regional round of the NCAA softball tournament, and that proved to be quite an advantage as the Tigers easily went 3-0 to punch their ticket to the super regionals.

Now, coach Beth Torina’s team heads to face No. 8 Stanford on the road in the super regional round, but Torina is a bit frustrated that No. 9-seeded LSU isn’t hosting this coming weekend as a top-eight seed.

She pointed to LSU’s RPI, which leads the SEC at No. 4 nationally, as a metric that indicates the Tigers should have been seeded hire.

“I will say, I’ve been asked a lot about being the ninth seed and I haven’t commented on it,” Torina said, per WAFB’s Jacques Doucet. “I think our team’s resume was really strong, I’m not sure why we’re going to be going on the road. I think we had every number in this season that says that we shouldn’t have been. I think we did all the things we needed to do for this committee.

“I don’t know if we deserved more or didn’t, but it’s disappointing a bit. But I know the team’s excited, I know they’re ready for the next opportunity. We’ve done it the hard way many times, that’s kind of how we like to do it around here.”

Host or not, the Tigers will look to clinch their first berth at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City for the first time since 2017 when they head out west for a three-game series against the Cardinal this coming weekend.

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Breaking down LSU’s recent history in NCAA softball tournament

Coach Beth Torina last reached the Women’s College World Series in 2017. Here’s how every NCAA tournament trip since has gone for the Tigers.

The LSU softball team learned its NCAA tournament fate on Sunday night.

The Tigers ultimately earned the No. 9 national seed and will host at Tiger Park in Baton Rouge for the regional round, which begins this Friday. However, coach Beth Torina’s squad will ultimately need some luck in order to host in the super regional round. If high seeds win out, LSU would head to Stanford for the super regional round.

Torina has been at LSU since 2012 and has reached the Women’s College World Series four times. However, the last was in 2017, and the Tigers have never captured a softball national title in program history.

With the NCAA tournament beginning this weekend, here’s how Torina and LSU’s last five trips to the postseason have gone.

Last season, the Tigers earned the No. 10 national seed and won their first two games to put themselves in the regional final. However, they lost two in a row to UL-Lafayette as they suffered their third consecutive regional exit.

LSU failed to secure a national seed in 2022 and was sent to the Tempe regional as an at-large. It never got to face ultimate regional champion Arizona State as it went two-and-done with losses to San Diego State and Cal State Fullerton.

After a 21-3 start in 2020 was squandered by the COVID-19 pandemic canceling the entire season, LSU returned to the tournament in 2021 and earned the No. 7 seed, which was the last time the Tigers earned a top-eight national seed. They won their first two in the regional round but needed two games to dispatch UL-Lafayette in the regional final. LSU hosted against Florida State in the super regional round but lost the first two games.

As the No. 10 national seed in 2019, LSU survived the Baton Rouge Regional, though it went to a decisive game against Texas Tech in the final. It advanced to the Minneapolis Super Regional to face Minnesota, where it dropped the first two games to the Golden Gophers.

After going 1-2 in the WCWS the prior season, Torina’s squad actually improved its national seeding in 2018 from No. 13 to No. 11. The Tigers won their first two games in the regional before once again facing the Ragin’ Cajuns in the final, where they needed two games to dispatch them. In the Tallahassee Super Regional, LSU lost two of three games to the Seminoles.

SEC softball leads the way with 13 teams in the NCAA Tournament

The SEC is sending 13 teams to the NCAA softball tournament, tying its own record.

The SEC is sending 13 teams to the 2024 NCAA softball tournament, tying its own record for most by a conference in the tournament. The league previously accomplished the feat in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Eight of the SEC’s 13 teams earned national seeds, including LSU at No. 9.

Tennessee is the SEC’s highest seed, coming in at No. 3. The Vols, along with No. 4 Florida and No. 7 Missouri are all guaranteed to host a super regional if they advance out of the first round.

At No. 9, Beth Torina and LSU hosting a super regional is possible, but the Tigers need help. If No. 8 Stanford fails to advance from its regional, the door opens for a super regional in Baton Rouge.

If SEC softball wasn’t tough enough already, the league will get even stronger with No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Oklahoma joining the fold next year. LSU notched an impressive win over Texas in March, beating the Longhorns 7-4 in Baton Rouge.

Despite the depth of the league, just two SEC programs — Alabama and Florida — have won the national title since the inaugural national tournament.

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