STARKVILLE – There were a lot of zeroes on the scoreboard on Friday night at Nusz Park, where No. 12 Mississippi State and No. 1 Tennessee battled out a grueling, defensive softball game.
Bulldog starter Alyssa Faircloth tossed a ruthless game for eight shutout innings before a heartbreaking three-run home run put the Vols on top in the ninth.
“It was supposed to be a curveball inside,” Faircloth said of the pitch that Tennessee’s Makenzie Butt sent over the right field wall.
It was an inning that saw the Vols pick up nearly as many hits as they’d had all game, with the home run being the seventh, after a remarkable outing from Faircloth. The Bulldogs needed it, managing jsut one hit through the first eight innings against Vols ace Sage Mardjetko.
“Today I felt good, I turned my brain off and just went out and trusted our plan and the work I put in beforehand,” Faircloth said. “I wanted to use my strengths rather than pitching to their weaknesses, which worked out for the most part. I’m glad that my teammates have my back defensively. We made some great plays, heads-up plays. All around a good performance, other than that one pitch.”
The game didn’t yield the result the Bulldogs had hoped for after battling for nine innings, but there was still a sense of belief among the players. Not quite a moral victory, but a reinforcement of the feeling that they can hang with the best of the best in a stacked conference.
“We showed that we can hold good teams to enough runs for us to win,” Faircloth said. “I think our hitters will learn from every single at-bat that they see from the pitchers they’re facing, and I think we can learn to make adjustments quicker.”
“That’s what SEC is going to feel like,” head coach Samantha Ricketts said. “I think for us, good to see how we’re going to compete against a team like that. I loved the start and outing from Alyssa, she really did what she’s done all year long for us, and she’s a competitor. She wants it, she wasn’t afraid of the challenge, and I hate that we couldn’t find ways to score runs early, but she continues to throw like that, she’s going to win a lot of games inb this conference.”
MSU will return to face off with the Vols in Game Two on Saturday at 1 p.m.
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