This weekend, No. 8 Stanford softball will welcome No. 9 LSU to The Farm to host a Super Regional round of the NCAA tournament. The winner of the three-game series will advance to the College World Series. For those that are more familiar with the NCAA hoops tournament, look at this weekend as the equivalent of the Sweet Sixteen with the winner advancing to the Elite Eight. Only the Elite Eight is the College World Series. Make sense? Good. Let’s dive in!
Game times: Game one will be on Friday at 7:00 PM PT on ESPNU and KZSU radio. Game two will be on Saturday at 6:00 PM PT on KZSU radio and TV TBD. Game three (if necessary) will be on Sunday (Time and TV TBD; KZSU radio will air the game). Stanford comes in at 46-14 overall with a 17-7 record in the Pac-12 while LSU comes in at 43-15 overall and 12-12 in the SEC.
Last time out: Stanford defeated Cal State Fullerton 4-2 on Sunday in an elimination game to win the regional round at home. NiJaree Canady was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal, pitching a fantastic game. Stanford scored all four runs in the bottom of the 3rd inning.
RECAP: No. 8 Stanford SB advances to Super Regional against No. 9 LSU
On LSU: The Tigers have had a strong season hence their seeding in the NCAA tournament. They took care of business in their regional defeating Jackson State 5-0 last Friday, Southern Illinois 4-1 on Saturday, and Southern Illinois again 9-0 on Sunday (five innings). They didn’t drop a game in their regional, which speaks well of them and they did so with relative comfort.
“They’re good, they’re really good,” Stanford head coach Jessica Allister said of LSU. “They can pitch, they can field, they can hit, they’re a complete team, so it’s going to be a good series. We’re gonna have to play some pretty good ball, but excited to host them here on The Farm.”
The Tigers are 31-7 at home on the season and 5-1 in neutral site games. Where they struggle is in true road games. They are 7-7. So, that’s something to keep in mind as this weekend’s games will be true road games for them.
Their top contact hitter is graduate student outfielder Ciara Briggs, who is batting .330 for two home runs, 23 RBIs, a .412 slugging percentage, and a .390 on base percentage. Senior infielder Danieca Coffey was leading the team with a .404 batting average until she went down with injury in March. So, that was a major loss for the Tigers. As for power, graduate student infielder Taylor Pleasants is leading the Tigers with 10 home runs and 46 RBIs to go along with a .261 batting average, a .479 slugging percentage, and a .408 on base percentage.
Like Stanford, the real strength of this Tigers team is their pitching. They have a 2.19 ERA as a team while their opponents have a 4.55 ERA. Also like Stanford, the Tigers’ top pitcher is a sophomore: Sydney Berzon has a 19-8 record to go along with a 1.62 ERA. Logging 194.1 innings and the only pitcher with a 100+ innings pitched, she’s really the one that carries the Tigers’ pitching staff though graduate student Kelley Lynch (2.68 ERA) and junior Raelin Chaffin (2.71 ERA) are pitching well, too.
Overall, LSU is really good. They have fantastic pitching and good enough bats to support their pitching. They are very similar to Stanford.
Keys to the series: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is they need to get everything they can out of NiJaree Canady. She is the engine that makes this Cardinal team go. She’s arguably the top pitcher in the country. When she’s dialed in, Stanford is extraordinarily tough to stop. If she delivers the goods, I like Stanford’s chances. If she doesn’t, Stanford will be very vulnerable. I should add, I’m confident Canady will pitch well. But there’s pitching well and then there is pitching elite. Stanford needs her to pitch elite. They can’t expect to win unless she is at the top of her game.
“Yeah, she’s incredible, she is absolutely incredible,” Allister said of Canady. “And I give a lot of credit to her and Coach Nyberg’s relationship. I think they have a really great working relationship and a lot of trust that’s been built up over the last two years and NiJa knows that Coach Nyberg is going to spend whatever time it takes to make sure she’s getting her the information that she needs in guiding her in the right direction and then she really trusts the feedback that she gets. But they work collaboratively really well and I just, I give a lot of credit to their relationship because it’s symbiotic. There’s give and take and when you understand that everybody wants the same things, you’re able to work together, but the two of them are phenomenal together.
“NiJa is, she’s a unicorn. It’s amazing that somebody can be as good as she is and still be grounded in the fact that she should be doing better. That’s her. That’s her superpower in what allows her to continue to perform at the top of the game. But it’s really unusual…After they [Cal State Fullerton] went up, she came into the dugout and said they will not score again. And just kinda that accountability and that team-first mentality, it’s different than I’ve ever really seen before in pitchers of her caliber and the team rallies around her and loves playing behind her.”
“I don’t think about that at all actually,” Canady said when asked if she feels any pressure being the star player. “I just try to think, honestly every day, every game I just go out and think what can I do best for this team and how can I benefit them. Every time the ball is in my hand I just think let’s get back in the dugout, let’s get back hitting, and then get some runs scored. I’m just taking this as four years to play with my best friends.”
The second thing Stanford needs to do is they need to find some power. They cannot expect to win this weekend if scoring runs is like pulling teeth. They need the bats to free up and some hits to clear the fence. Just like how Malcolm Moore is the power bat that the baseball team feeds off of, Taryn Kern needs to take that mantle for the softball team. If she has a big weekend, the rest of her teammates will feed off of that.
“Well yeah, if you have your leadoff hitter getting on base over half the time, you’re in a pretty good spot,” Allister said of Kern with a chuckle. “It’s been great. Taryn again, we’ve talked all year about how seamlessly she’s fit into the lineup and that’s been a huge piece of it. But also just she’s risen to every occasion. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, it doesn’t matter the moment, it’s never too big. In fact I think she’s best in the biggest moments and just really gives us confidence at the top of the lineup, which has been a really welcomed addition.”
“I think just trusting myself,” Kern said of the key to her success. “With two strikes I see a lot of pitches. So, just trusting that I know my zone in the box and sticking true to that.”
Third, Stanford’s bullpen needs to give them something. While Canady needs to be fantastic, she needs some help from the other pitchers. Regan Krause in particular. She’s a senior. She needs to be ready to go. If Stanford has to go to freshman Alyssa Houston at any point in the series, they’ll be in trouble. No disrespect to Houston, but she’s the third string pitcher right now. It’s on Krause to be the one to take the pressure off Canady. Not Houston.
Finally, as a bonus key the series, Stanford needs to feed off their home crowd energy. They are 22-5 at home while LSU as I mentioned above is 7-7 in true road games. This is why you get home field advantage. To host a Super Regional with a trip to the College World Series on the line. Stanford needs to get their crowd going and hopefully that will rattle the Tigers a bit.
“It’s amazing,” Allister said of having home field advantage. “It’s amazing for a couple of reasons. One you know, today we’re sitting here practicing instead of traveling, which is wonderful. It’s nice to sleep in your own bed, it’s nice to stay in your own routine, and then you get to play in front of your fans. The connection between the team and the fans is a special one and it’s great for our upper classmen to be able to play another weekend at home. So, we’re really happy to be here.”
“I think it’s everything honestly,” Canady said of playing at home. “No one really talks about how just tiring traveling can be. So, the fact that we’re here is huge and then also we’re still in school, so it’s giving us another day to stay in classes and things like that.
“It’s definitely hard [to balance school and softball], but I know we all try to get a lot of our workload done in the early days of the week. So like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we’re all just really focused on school and then that allows us to just focus on softball later on in the week.”
Prediction: Given Stanford is at home and LSU is a shaky on the road, I gotta roll with the Cardinal in this one. I think it’ll go to a game three on Sunday but Stanford will find a way to win and advance to the College World Series for a second straight year. That experience I think will help Stanford out, especially since they’ll be at home this time as opposed to having to win a series on the road like they did last year.
“Yeah, I think it helps,” Allister said of having reached the College World Series a year ago. “Similar to what I said before, I think the piece is just understanding that we’re good enough. We don’t have to be special; we don’t have to be anybody else. Be ourselves, play our game, and who we are is good enough. So, trusting that and understanding that we don’t have to be superhuman is a really important experience.”
“To beat LSU,” Kern said with a smile of what the message is. “Honestly, that’s the message. So, we’re just excited to go out there this weekend and have some fun…I think if you haven’t been out to a game, come see NiJa and her electric energy in person. It’s incredible.”
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