STARKVILLE — When the season started, Mississippi State softball coach Vann Stuedeman said the mental makeup of ace pitchers Holly Ward and Cassady Knudsen would go a long way toward determining her team’s success.
So far, the MSU pitching staff is passing the test.
In a 7-0 win against Troy on Wednesday, Ward threw the team’s 17th shutout to tie a school record.
No. 23 MSU (34-15, 6-12 Southeastern Conference) will try to break the mark this weekend when it takes on No. 14 South Carolina (38-11, 11-7) in a three-game, SEC series. The teams will play at 5 p.m. today, at 11 a.m. Saturday, and at noon Sunday at Beckham Field in Columbia, South Carolina. The middle game will be shown on the SEC Network.
“They have given us a chance to win,” Stuedeman said of her pitchers. “They have been competitive. They have been fighting for 21 outs every time in every game. It has been a joy to watch the growth and maturation of this staff.”
The Bulldogs are one of the few teams in the country not to suffer a run-rule defeat this season.
MSU has a 1.72 earned run average, 25 complete games, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 361 to 134.
Ward is 13-6, while Knudsen is 12-6. Emily Williams, Candace Denis, and Emily Mitchell have combined to throw the other 96 2/3 innings.
“As a senior, you want to go out doing your best,” Ward said. “This is my last time to play against these teams and my last SEC experience. You want to make it memorable. You want to make it last.”
Stuedeman likes to get pitchers experience in their freshman seasons. The sophomore season is then spent developing an extra pitch or two and refining other aspects. The big growth for her pitchers in their final two seasons is from a mental standpoint.
“A softball season in the SEC is a grind,” Stuedeman said. “You have to condition yourself for the grind. Those last couple of years, it’s not as much as doing things differently as it is doing things correctly on a more consistent basis. When you send seniors to the circle, you are expecting good results.”
MSU will need good results to keep its hopes of playing host to a NCAA tournament regional alive. For a third-straight week, MSU remains No. 19 in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). The Bulldogs remain in striking distance of finishing in the top 16. However, the move upward continues to stall.
This past weekend, MSU dropped all three games of its Super Bulldog Weekend series to No. 5 Florida. Arkansas and Florida are the only teams to sweep MSU.
South Carolina is third in the SEC, four games behind Florida with six games to go. Coming off a series sweep at home against Missouri, South Carolina is No. 11 in the RPI.
South Carolina is 21-2 at home. Its only losses have been to Arkansas and Campbell.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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