STARKVILLE — It looked like Mississippi State softball was on its way to losing to Murray State for the second time in as many days on Sunday afternoon.
A two-run fourth inning and great pitching from Hannah James put the Racers in the driver’s seat in the latter innings of the game.
However, the Bulldogs answered with three of their own in the fifth, punctuated by a go-ahead sacrifice fly from Jackie McKenna. Murray State found a way to tie things up on its last strike in the top of the seventh, forcing some extra-innings heroics from the Bulldogs.
They did just that as Chloe Malau’ulu found a pitch in her wheelhouse in the bottom of the eighth, launching a two-run walk-off homer for a 5-3 win to conclude The Snowman in Starkville.
“I knew that the new pitcher coming in had more drop spin than the last girl,” Malau’ulu said. “That’s my pitcher, so I was ready to hit. I was green light all the way.”
It was a no-doubter off the bat as Mississippi State (16-5) concluded the weekend tournament with a 4-1 record, the lone loss coming to the Racers on Saturday.
Sunday’s win had some extra satisfaction behind it being that the Bulldogs were able to get Murray State (12-7) back the next day, even more so since the Racers tied things up in the seventh.
Coming into the weekend, the plan wasn’t exactly for two-straight walk-offs to end the tournament, but emerging from those games with wins is big for a team continuing to build momentum in its non-conference schedule.
“We talk about it a lot, learning from every weekend and in reality, learning how to win these close games,” Mississippi State head coach Samantha Ricketts said. “We talked about that in Clearwater that we’re going to learn how to win these one-run games, so it’s really good to see, both yesterday and today, being able to come up big and not letting the moment get too big.”
Momentum was firmly in the camp of Murray State after that fourth inning, but the Bulldogs took it back in the fifth thanks to timely hitting, and smart base running after some careless errors from the Racers.
Mississippi State quickly had two in scoring position after a single and double to start the inning, leading to Nadia Barbary, who dropped a bloop single right in front of Bailey Broemmer, whose throwing error allowed a second run to score.
McKenna followed, giving the Bulldogs the lead with that go-ahead sac fly that drove in Barbary.
“She was throwing all up, so we changed the gameplan a little bit,” McKenna said. “I knew there was one out, so I just had to get something in the air deep enough for them to tag and score, so I made that happen.”
Mississippi State has fared well in non-conference tournament play this season, recording a winning record for the fourth weekend in a row.
It sets the stage for some marquee softball at Nusz Field next weekend with the Bulldog Invitational, one that welcomes No. 1 Oklahoma to town.
“We grinded through some tough games for us,” Ricketts said. “Ultimately, those are lessons that we need to learn. We talk about that a lot, not taking any team for granted.
“For us, being able to bounce back from the loss yesterday to get a tough one today is just going to help us moving forward.”
The Bulldogs play their first game of the Bulldog Invitational against Southeastern Louisiana at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
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