BATON ROUGE---What got McNeese softball to this point failed them here Friday in its NCAA Tournament opening round 10-2 (6 inn.) loss to the No. 7 overall seed LSU.
 
The Cowgirl defense was committed three errors, the most by McNeese this season since it committed four at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on March 26.
 
McNeese will play the loser of tonight's UL-Lafayette/George Washington loser at 4:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN3 in an elimination game.
 
"Tough game. We came out and scored first and we thought we had something going. Homeruns were the name of the game today," said head coach James Landreneau. "They had some timely hits, and the game got away from us. We looked a little shell shocked around the fifth or the sixth inning and just didn't have any answers. I thought we were able to get people on base consistently but didn't have much after. Jill Poullard hit a couple balls straight into the wind and we had to scratch runs off of it, but the bottom line is we have to play better defensively. Defensively, we've been solid all season but the thing that's carried us all year kind of failed us today. You can't turn that lineup over too many times, and today the walks and errors killed us. They also hit four home runs and that's the difference in the game."
 
Half of the Tiger runs came off three home runs, two two-run home runs by Amada Doyle and Shelbi Sunseri. Doyle also had a solo homerun on the day as well. She ended the day 2 for 4 with four RBI and scored three runs. Sunseri was 2 for 3 with two RBI and scored one run.
 
McNeese picked up four hits in the game, all singles. Jil Poullard, Haylee Brinlee, Alayis Seneca, and Chloe Gomez all had one hit apiece.
 
The Cowgirls took an early 1-0 lead in the first inning when McCrary scored before Kaylee Lopez was tagged out in a run down between first and second for the third out.
 
The Tiger took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning on the first of two Doyle home runs of the game.
 
The Cowgirls had a chance to score more runs in the fourth inning when Kaylee Lopez reached on an error then Brinlee followed with a single to left field. A ground out and a fly to centerfield squandered the threat.
 
LSU added two more runs in the fourth to extend the lead to 4-1 on Sunseri's two run home run to right field
 
McNeese cut the lead in half to 4-2 in the fifth inning on a sac fly to centerfield by Poullard that scored Gomez from third. Gomez led the inning off with a single to short, went to second base when her foot knocked the ball out of LSU second baseman Taylor Tidwell's on her way to the bag. A sac bunt by McCrary moved Gomez to third before Poullard's sac fly brought her home for the second Cowgirl run of the game.
 
Doyle struck again in the fifth inning with her second home run of the game to put the Tigers up 5-2. After two Cowgirl pitching changes and the bases loaded, McNeese's Jenna Edwards struck out Ali Newland to end the inning.
 
LSU scored five more runs in the sixth inning on five hits to pick up the run rule win.
 
"We've got to clean it up and play better defense. I think we also need to do a better job of not trying to get hits but instead getting quality at bats. We looked like we were starting to guess at the plate a couple times, so I think right now we need to just regroup and get focused on that. We had some mental mistakes too and that was unacceptable. I think we just need to regroup, take a deep breath, and make sure we come back and start to focus on us a little bit. Obviously, you have to take your hats off for LSU today, they played exceptionally today."