Put it on the T-shirts. Splash it across social media. Paste it on every billboard from Starkville to Oklahoma City. Heck, write it in the Mississippi sky: The Bulldogs are heading to the Women’s College World Series.
If you’ve ever spent a spring afternoon at Nusz Park, you know the vibe is completely unrivaled. A pressure cooker for opposing teams, when the home team gets rolling, it’s absolute madness. But the magic of Mississippi State softball isn’t the stadium. It’s the players suiting up for each game, chanting, “Maroon!” from the dugout and demanding the Bulldog faithful in the stands to yell back, “White!” It’s the post-game tradition of meeting with fans, win or lose, to sign softballs, ink t-shirts, and high-five every kid in the stadium.
For years, head coach Samantha Ricketts has been quietly raising the bar in Starkville. What she and her squad have built isn’t just winning softball; it is the embodiment of the “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” movement.
But entering this weekend, playing in just the second Super Regional in program history, everyone, and I mean everyone, expected the unseeded Dawgs to lose. They were tasked with slaying Goliath, stepping into the backyard of the ultimate softball giant: the University of Oklahoma.
On Friday, MSU did the improbable and took Game 1. On Saturday, Oklahoma did what Oklahoma does, flexing its muscles to even the series.
The stage was set for a winner-take-all Game 3. What followed was the stuff of screenwriters. You couldn’t script it any better.
With the season on the line, Coach Ricketts handed the ball to Delainey Everett. After anchoring last year’s staff, Sunday marked her first start of the entire season. In the biggest game in Mississippi State softball history, on a stage this program has never been on, a pitcher who hadn’t started a single game all year walked into the circle.
Last season, Everett’s father passed away unexpectedly. She wears his highway patrol number on her face mask and the towel in her back pocket to keep him close. This season, an early injury sidelined her from the starting rotation. But on Sunday, on what would have been her parents’ wedding anniversary, she gripped the yellow softball in her hand. She delivered the performance of a lifetime, silencing the most prolific offense in the country.
A 6-0 Bulldog win. Put it in the books: 399 games: That’s how many games had passed since the Sooners were last shut out. MSU had 66 home runs on the season. OU had 187. Not a soul that follows softball expected this outcome, except maybe the women in the visitor’s dugout.
When the final out was recorded, I felt the ghost of Bulldogs past. Morgan William’s legendary, buzzer-beating shot in 2017 to take down the UConn women’s basketball dynasty and snap their 111-game winning streak. The feeling here was similar. I looked over at my wife amidst the chaos on our television: “There’s just something about MSU women’s sports.”
After the softball team swarmed Everett, giving her her much-deserved flowers, ESPN put a headset on her, and in a couple of words, she said what the entire fanbase was thinking.
We weren’t the favorites. We weren’t supposed to win. OU had its ticket punched before MSU booked its hotels. But at the end of the day: “An underdog is still a freaking dog.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
