Road Trip Diaries: Notre Dame’s Payton Tidd Guides Irish with Her Arm and Bat in Saturday Win Over LSU

In the first inning, Notre Dame pitcher Payton Tidd looked shaky and rattled. Earning the start in the circle in Saturday’s opener against LSU, a small strike zone and some extra free passes by virtue thereof had led to a 5-run first inning for the Tigers, an inning that also included Tidd giving up a long grand slam off the bat of LSU’s Ali Newland.

Six innings later, Tidd was the game’s heroine, making a difference both with her arm and with her bat. Two runs in the top of the 7th gave Notre Dame a much-needed 8-6 win; after the game, Fighting Irish head coach Deanna Gumpf quickly put her finger on the game-changing moment for her veteran pitcher.

“In the first, she was letting the strike zone get to her,” Gumpf said. “Once she decided that she wasn’t going to fight [the umpire] on the strike zone anymore, that she was going to give it to him, it changed her game… once she realized ‘I’m not going to win this battle’, then she changed it, and after she changed it, she was a completely different pitcher.”

Indeed she was. After the 5-run first, Tidd allowed one more LSU run in the second inning, then shut down the scoring with five straight scoreless frames to end the game. She collected four strikeouts on the day and – in spite of allowing six runs, five of them earned – only allowed three hits in the ballgame.

Tidd’s value to her team was made clear through her work in the circle, but even that was underscored by a 5th-inning mammoth home run that almost reached the road behind left field and knotted the game at 6-all.

TIE GAME. @paytontidd hits it even further than Abby as she clears the cameraman down the left field line to tie it up at 6. #GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/xF1wXsx3Mk

— Notre Dame Softball (@NDsoftball) February 19, 2022

A true senior in 2022, Tidd’s prowess with the bat is not new, nor is her ability to perform under pressure. Normally, a pitcher aiding her own effort for a W is headline-making news; for Gumpf and Notre Dame, though, it’s just old hat.

“She’s just a really good hitter,” the Irish head coach expressed after the game. “Because she doesn’t hit every game, people don’t realize that she’s such a good hitter. I don’t think that was a surprise to anybody; she’s one of our many hitters that can really drive the ball.”

The win was important – taking down a ranked SEC foe is never unimportant – but even moreso for a Notre Dame team that got off to a shaky, 0-3 start to the Clearwater tournament. After losses to Tennessee, Wisconsin, and South Florida to begin the weekend, the Fighting Irish needed a victory and needed to fight in a game. They went 2-for-2 in those departments on Saturday, a point that was not lost on Gumpf.

“This was massive,” Gumpf said of her team’s victory. “It was so important that we started [like we did]. We’ve played some bad softball for two days straight, and we’ve got to keep getting better… playing such bad softball against such good competition can get to you. [It was a matter of] showing ‘When we’re good, we can beat anybody. That’s what [the team] needed to know; I don’t know about anybody else.”

Saturday’s game was Notre Dame’s only matchup of the day and their fourth – of five – on the weekend. Even with the first inning considered, Tidd’s performance in the complete game effort was one of the weekend’s best showings in the circle. Add in her clutch heroics at the plate and it’s not hyperbole to say that the game’s result could be very different without Tidd’s skills on full display.