Texas A&M softball dropped the final game of its first conference series of the season on Monday night against No. 12 LSU. The maroon and white struggled at the plate and ultimately fell 4-1 to the Tigers at Tiger Park in Baton Rouge.
A&M’s overall record dropped to 20-5 and is now 1-2 in conference play.
In spite of back-to-back losses, A&M coach Jo Evans said her message to the team was to not become discouraged. Instead, she challenged the Aggies to continue growing and improving with each opportunity.
“I told our kids the most important thing right now is to not get discouraged,” Evans said. “We had a chance to win a series and we’ve got to remember that. What I expect from our team is just to keep learning. Keep learning, keep growing, getting more emotionally and mentally mature in how we manage what goes on in a ball game. That’s going to be the opportunity to win big games in the end.”
Despite A&M’s early offensive momentum with hits from senior Kelbi Fortenberry and an RBI by senior Ashlynn Walls to take a 1-0 lead in the top of the second, the Aggies were unable to combat a productive performance at the plate by the Tigers later on.
Graduate transfer Kelsey Broadus started the Aggies off on the mound and recorded six strikeouts in 4.1 innings pitched. Junior Makinzy Herzog stepped into the circle as a reliever and closed out the game without allowing a hit.
“I thought Kelsey Broadus pitched really well tonight,” Evans said. “She kept their hitters off balance and did a really nice job attacking their hitters.”
The Tigers’ win ultimately can be accredited to the momentum they capitalized on in the fifth inning. A&M walked two batters then made a defensive error that LSU took advantage of, leading to the Tigers’ 4-1 lead.
“We had a couple of passed balls there in that situation, which is very uncharacteristic of us and just not taking care of the ball,” Evans said. “We let them score four runs on one hit, a bunch of walks and some passed balls. I’m not happy with that inning and how we managed that, but overall on the day, I thought we managed ourselves pretty well.”
Offensively, Evans said she was proud of the team’s ability to take the lead early and apply pressure, but said the team needs to improve its efficiency and aggressiveness at the plate.
“We’ve got to be able to score more runs for our pitchers,” Evans said. “We don’t want them feeling like they have to throw shutouts every day to win a ball game.”
The maroon and white were unable to overcome the deficit and ultimately fell to the Tigers, 4-1. A&M managed to beat LSU in the first game of the series on Saturday night but were unable to come out on top in the second and third games of the series.
After analyzing this weekend’s performance and looking ahead to the future, Evans said she sees several opportunities to improve and considers this opening conference series to be a learning opportunity and catalyst for growth.
“It’s a long season and we’ve got seven more series,” Evans said. “It’s important to me that our kids learn from this. That we take away that we can play with these teams … We don’t have to be perfect, but we’ve got to be able to execute and manage the pressure.”
Up next, the Aggies will host its first SEC series against No. 24 South Carolina next weekend at Davis Diamond. The first game will be Friday night with first pitch slated for 6:30 p.m.