Re-adjusting their goals

• By WILLIAM WEATHERS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 3, 2008 - Page: 2C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Three weeks ago during a lost weekend in Alabama the goals for the LSU softball team began to shift somewhat.

No longer was the opportunity to win the Southeastern Conference’s regular-season or Western Division realistic, so they readjusted their sights on the next best thing.

A week later that objective took a serious jolt when the Tigers suffered their first series loss to Ole Miss. They followed that by dropping their next series against Tennessee and suddenly simply qualifying for the league’s postseason tournament looked to be in peril.

However, even without its staff ace, LSU put postseason plans back on its agenda with a three-game home sweep of Arkansas last weekend and now finds itself riding a five-game win streak with the chance to finish third in the league.

“It’s about pride,” LSU coach Yvette Girouard said. “You have to move forward and third place is a very realistic goal. Are we happy with third place? Of course not. But we’re trying to deal with the hand that we’ve been dealt which we dealt to ourselves. We’re trying to be positive, get hot when it matters.”

With the league’s top two teams — Alabama (47-4, 23-2) and Florida (56-2, 24-1) ranked No. 1 and No. 3 nationally, respectively, — a third-place finish could enhance the résumé for LSU (39-14, 15-10) which finishes the regular season at South Carolina (20-24, 7-16).

The three-game series starts with a noon doubleheader today and concludes with a single game at noon Sunday. All three games will be broadcast locally by WNXX-104.5/104.9-FM.

“We would have like to have had a better record,” LSU senior right fielder Quinlan Duhon said. “After Ole Miss we kind of decided there’s nothing we can do except win the games we can control, then we’ll put ourselves in a much better position for the (SEC) tournament. We know that it’s at home and that’s going to give us more of an edge.”

LSU trails No. 13 Tennessee (46-10, 14-9) by a game in the SEC but could take over third with a sweep of South Carolina, contingent the Lady Vols don’t do the same against a Florida team that’s lost only twice in 58 games.

A third-place finish would also be advantageous from the standpoint the Tigers would not have to face either the Crimson Tide or Gators in the first round of next week’s SEC tournament set for May 8-10 and also potentially enhance their postseason seeding for NCAA regional play.

Moreover, South Carolina needs a sweep over LSU to secure the league’s final berth into the tournament ahead of Ole Miss (25-26, 9-19).

Reigning SEC player of the week Rachel Mitchell tops LSU in hitting with a .379 average and is tied with catcher Killian Roessner with 10 homers and has a team-high 46 RBIs.

Girouard remains uncertain whether junior right-hander Dani Hofer will be available to pitch for the second straight weekend because of tendonitis in her wrist.