On the back of a dozen strikeouts from Emily Williams, Mississippi State softball defeated Tennessee State, 4-0, on Sunday to claim the Bulldog Kickoff Classic title. State has now won two tournaments over the first two weeks of the season.
With a 9-1 record, head coach Samantha Ricketts now boasts the best 10-game start by any head coach in program history.
“”It was good to get her [Williams] out there for her first start of the year, try and lengthen her out a little bit, because we know we’ll be using her a lot down the stretch,” Ricketts said in a news release. We mixed up the roles and had Annie [Willis] come in in the save situation just to give them different looks and prepare them for some different things we might do throughout the year. [Williams] threw a great game. Any time they got on, she came right back and got the next one out, and that’s really what we’re asking for out of the pitching staff.”
Williams faced 18 batters, allowing two hits. Annie Willis threw 2.0 shutout innings for the save. The Bulldogs have shutout the opponent in five of their 10 games this year and are averaging 10.0 strikeouts per game as a staff.
The Bulldogs will head out on a long road trip next week, playing six games in Louisiana and California before returning to Starkville. The trip begins Tuesday at Southeast Louisiana with first pitch set for 6 p.m.
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