STARKVILLE — Sometimes, when a player transfers away from a program, there’s some friction between the two sides that can boil over if that player ends up facing her former team. But with Raelin Chaffin and her former coach at LSU, Beth Torina, that was never the case.
Although Chaffin joined a Southeastern Conference rival by transferring to Mississippi State, Torina never stopped rooting for the right-hander she coached for three years. She was behind Chaffin throughout her tumultuous offseason, which included a battle with thyroid cancer, and remained behind her as she became one of the best pitchers in the SEC in her final season.
“Raelin Chaffin, we truly pulled for her every step of the way this year, watched all the games, and we were for her all the time,” Torina said after her Tigers defeated Chaffin and the Bulldogs in the second round of the SEC Tournament. “(We) would have preferred to play anybody else and let her keep going.”
That great season was the result of months of hard work in her new home, both in her recovery from surgery in September and in her preparation to handle a much more taxing workload than she was used to.
Heading into the NCAA Tournament, which for MSU starts Friday against Washington in Lubbock, Texas, Chaffin has nearly doubled her previous career high in innings pitched. And although she has shown some signs of wearing down, it has mostly been smooth sailing for the senior from Bossier City, Louisiana.
“She’s always had good numbers. It was learning how to be an ace. She hadn’t been an ace yet in her prior seasons (at LSU),” Bulldogs pitching coach Taryne Mowatt-McKinney said. “A lot of times, that’s the hardest part is taking the talent that you have and learning how to be an ace where everybody is preparing for you, and being OK with that. Being OK with the other team knowing everything you have and still knowing you can get the job done.”
The build-up
Following a 34-20 season and a regional appearance in 2024, MSU head coach Samantha Ricketts did not feel the need to attack the transfer portal much, instead relying on her returning talent, her coaching staff’s player development track record and a strong incoming freshman class. But with Aspen Wesley out of eligibility, Ricketts knew she needed someone who could be a frontline starting pitcher.
That did not describe Chaffin’s role with the Tigers, though. She was stuck behind Ali Kilponen, Shelbi Sunseri and Sydney Berzon on LSU’s pitching depth chart. With Berzon joined by star freshman Jayden Heavener this year, Chaffin knew her time in the circle would again be limited. So she put her name in the portal and quickly found a new home in Starkville.
“She’s been through her own battles this year with her cancer diagnosis in the fall, but she’s handled it well. She’s ready,” Ricketts said before the start of the season. “She wants the ball and she wants to get out there. She’s got something to prove.”
Chaffin was coming off her best season at LSU as a junior, with an 11-5 record and a 2.86 ERA in 88 innings. But her offseason work with Mowatt-McKinney, both before and after her cancer treatment, quickly helped her find another gear.
There are fewer challenges in softball bigger than pitching with NiJaree Canady, the Stanford-turned-Texas Tech ace, on the other side. But Chaffin got the better of Canady in an Opening Day duel in Clearwater, Florida. Her six strikeouts were just half of Canady’s total, but she allowed just three hits and one unearned run in a 3-1, eight-inning win.
“It’s super easy to perform when you have a coach like (Mowatt-McKinney) who knows you like the back of her hand,” Chaffin said. “She really works with us in the bullpen before the game, sees what’s good, knows what to call.”
Chaffin quickly proved that first victory was a sign of things to come. She shut out a powerful Nebraska lineup to cap off an opening weekend in which she pitched 22 ⅔ innings without allowing an earned run. And while it has been more up and down for Chaffin in SEC play, she still helped lead the Bulldogs to their first winning record in conference play in 24 years.
The veteran’s maturity in the circle has allowed her to bounce back quickly from her poorer outings. A week after two run-rule losses at Tennessee, Chaffin tossed a complete-game, two-hit shutout to open a series against Missouri. And after leaving a game at Oklahoma with a shoulder injury following a throw to first base on Apr. 20, she gave up a combined two runs on six hits with 19 strikeouts in a pair of complete-game wins the following weekend at Kentucky.
“In the beginning, she had to have the heavy load to ease her mind going into a weekend of games,” Mowatt-McKinney said. “Now, she’s learned to trust herself and her ability to not have to do the heavy load during the week, and trust that it’s already in her now. She just needs to refine, work on what she needs to work on and then save her good stuff for when the batters are in the box.”
From State to the pros
Chaffin is the first MSU pitcher to win 20 games and make 40 appearances since 2015. She leads the SEC in wins (21), and is second in innings pitched (171 ⅔) and third in strikeouts (187). She mixes speeds well and has a devastating changeup, and her ability to throw to all quadrants of the strike zone has helped her handle facing great hitters three or four times in a game.
Those numbers earned her Second-Team All-SEC honors, and the Bulldogs have needed every last one of her innings with Josey Marron having an off year and Delainey Everett still building up the stamina to go the distance.
“She is a great human being. She meant a lot to our program. I know what kind of competitor she is,” Torina said. “There’s no animosity at all, whatsoever. I just told her I was proud of her, and I hope she’s proud of the season that she’s had, because it’s been one for the record books.”
Chaffin will not be hanging up her cleats once MSU’s season comes to an end. She was selected by the Talons in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League Draft on May 3, and will remain teammates with Bulldogs outfielder Sierra Sacco in the pros. She gave Mowatt-McKinney, a two-time national champion as a player at Arizona and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2007 Women’s College World Series, a lot of credit for her growth.
“None of this is possible without her,” Chaffin said. “She really just embraced me when I came in out of the portal and has worked with me, really bought into me.”
First, after a nine-day layoff, a well-rested Chaffin will try to pitch her team through the Lubbock Regional. MSU will almost certainly need to get past its old foe, Canady, to advance, but Chaffin has already shown that anything is possible if she is at her best.
“It is mentally taxing as much as physical. She’s done a good job,” Mowatt-McKinney said. “Just like any pitcher or player, she has her ups and downs during the season, and even when she’s been down a little bit, it hasn’t taken long to get back up.”
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