Harper Pitches Gem As Auburn Softball Beats LSU 2-1

May 1, 2015

Auburn
Auburn
(45-8, 17-5 SEC)
May 1, 2015
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#5 LSU Tigers 
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Arkansas
LSU
(43-9 14-8 SEC)

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Junior Marcy Harper tossed a six-plus two-hit game Friday night, holding the No. 5 LSU offense to only one run and helping the No. 8 Auburn softball team to a big 2-1 series-opening victory. The win is Auburn's fifth in a row and was LSU's second loss at home this season.

Harper battled in arguably her best performance of the season, tying her lowest number of hits given up in a start this year and Friday was her second-straight start of six innings or more. The Hoover, Ala.-native is now 10-3 on the year becoming Auburn's third pitcher with 10 or more wins this season.

"Not many teams can come in here and do something like that," Auburn head coach Clint Myers said. "Marcy (Harper) hit her spots tonight. She went up and down, left and right and she had a great defense behind her. It was two great teams playing tonight and we happened to win it."

The win is Auburn's 45th of the season as it is now 45-8 on the year and 17-5 in conference play. The victory also keeps the team well within the hunt of the SEC regular-season championship as Florida held its half-game lead on the Tigers winning at Missouri, 7-6, also on Friday.

Along with Harper's performance, it was the Auburn defense that came up big. As the pitching staff worked around the six walks given up, Auburn committed no errors and recorded a big double play in the fifth inning, still leading the conference with 24 twin killings this year.

Offensively, Auburn was limited to only three hits with two runs coming home, all before the fourth inning. LSU starting pitcher, Carley Hoover, went the distance, giving up two earned runs with six strikeouts, but walking five. The loss was Hoover's fourth of the year.

Emily Carosone did go 2-for-3 in the game, the only two-hit performance for any player in the game from either team. Kasey Cooper had the other hit for Auburn going 1-for-2 with two walks.

Auburn got things started relatively quickly in the first inning, loading the bases after a single by Carosone and walks to Cooper and Branndi Melero. Morgan Estell got the job done with the soft grounder to short, allowing Carosone to score easily and take the 1-0 lead. It was the only RBI of the game for Auburn.

LSU responded in the bottom of the first with its own run on a sacrifice fly by Savannah Jaquish, but Harper shut it down the rest of the way to keep it tied at one after the first frame.

Auburn got its go-ahead run in the third inning as Cooper led off the frame with a walk and then reached around to third on a wild pitch and a ground out to the pitcher. With still only one out and Estell at the plate, Cooper was able to score on Hoover's second wild pitch of the inning. The heads-up base running was the final run scored in the game and it was still only the third inning.

Harper went on to toss four-straight scoreless innings with no hits and LSU seemed to have no answer. The sixth inning was when things got interesting.

After two of the first three batters Harper faced to lead off the sixth reached base by a walk and a hit by pitch, the Auburn coaching staff decided to take Harper out and replace her with junior Rachael Walters. Walters got a big pop out to short on Sandra Simmons, but then followed that with a walk to Kailey McCasland. Playing the matchups, assistant coach Corey Myers decided to make another pitching change and reenter the starter in Harper with the bases loaded.

LSU tried to work its own matchup bringing in pinch hitter Constance Quinn, but Harper was not budging. Harper came back in and got the big ground out to end the frame and quieting the LSU crowd.

On a side note, junior Tiffany Howard had her 52-game reached base streak snapped on Friday, going 0-for-3 with a sacrifice bunt and two strikeouts. It marks the first game this season that the Pembroke, Ga.-native did not reach base via a walk, hit or hit by pitch, which is the longest of any Auburn Tiger in recent history.

Auburn and LSU will play game two of this series tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Tiger Park. The game can be seen online only on WatchESPN.com.

For more information on Auburn softball, visit AuburnTigers.com, follow the team on Twitter @Auburn_Softball or follow them on Facebook at Facebook.com/AuburnSoftball.