LSU Athletics
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A complete team effort that featured Cece Cellura’s second consecutive complete game and Kylee Edwards continued domination at the plate leveled the series with No. 22/19 LSU defeating No. 21/24 South Carolina, 5-1 in game two on Saturday at Carolina Softball Stadium.
LSU improves its record to 20-10 and 2-6 in SEC play, while South Carolina falls to 21-11 and 1-4 in conference.
Cellura (4-2) and the defense played 6.1 innings of shutout softball. Cellura faced 28 batters in 7.0 innings, striking out two and allowing one run on eight hits. She also induced 10 groundouts, including LSU’s 19th double play of the season, and eight flyouts.
Four LSU players had multiple hits. K. Edwards led with her sixth multi-hit game of the season, going 2-for-3, scoring twice (including a steal of home), and walking once.
Destiny Harris and Maddox McKee each went 2-for-2. Harris scored twice, walked, and stole a base. McKee drove in three runs, including a two-RBI triple—her fifth career multi-RBI game. Sierra Daniel was 2-for-4 with two doubles.
Josey Marron (1-2) is charged with the loss for South Carolina. Marron faced only eight batters and gave up one run on three hits and walked one batter before being pulled. Marron finished the game with no strikeouts.
LSU led 1-0 thanks to back-to-back extra-base hits: K. Edwards doubled to left center, and Daniel followed with an RBI double to left for the first two hits of the game.
Jalia Lassiter ended the third inning with a diving, run-saving catch in centerfield, and LSU rewarded the defense and Cellura with three runs in the fourth. K. Edwards opened the stanza with a leadoff single up the middle and made her way to third on Harris’ single. K. Edwards then stole home plate, pushing LSU’s margin to 2-0. Later, with runners on second and third, McKee hit a base-clearing triple down the right field line, stretching the visiting team’s advantage to 4-0 after four frames. All of LSU’s runs in the fourth were scored with two outs.
In the sixth inning, LSU added an insurance run when McKee’s RBI single brought in Harris, making it 5-0. In the seventh, South Carolina broke up the shutout with a home run by Shae Anderson. Cellura then recorded a strikeout and induced a flyout to left field to end the game.
Up Next
The series finale between LSU and South Carolina will be at noon CT on Sunday. The game will be streamed on SEC Network+.
