Mississippi State’s final two days at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic were a mixed bag as the No. 25 Bulldogs held their own against No. 1 Oklahoma on Friday and picked up a solid win over Cal State Fullerton on Saturday before coming up short against Fresno State.
For a brief moment, it seemed as though MSU (11-3) might do the unthinkable against the three-time defending national champion Sooners, who have now won an all-time record 67 games in a row. But Auburn transfer Jessie Blaine put the Bulldogs out in front early with a two-run first-inning home run against Oklahoma’s Nicole May.
Kinzie Hansen evened the score with a two-run blast of her own in the bottom of the first, but Sierra Sacco’s RBI single gave MSU the lead back in the second. That would be all the scoring the Bulldogs managed, though, as the Sooners chased Bulldogs starter Aspen Wesley after she allowed five runs in three innings. Oklahoma (14-0) continued adding on from there in a 9-3 victory.
“I like the way we came out. I thought we were ready to play and aggressive from the jump,” said MSU head coach Samantha Ricketts, a 2009 Oklahoma graduate who played for Sooners head coach Patty Gasso. “(Oklahoma) did a great job of staying under control and battling back. It was a good battle early on. We just can’t give too many extra chances to a team like that.”
The Bulldogs grabbed a 4-2 win against the Titans, a team that had run-ruled No. 5 Tennessee earlier in the weekend, in their first game Saturday. MSU loaded the bases with one out in the first and plated a run on a Madisyn Kennedy sacrifice fly, but Cal State Fullerton (9-6) took the lead with two in the third against sophomore Josey Marron.
In the fourth, though, the Bulldogs pulled ahead for good, tying the game on a Brylie St. Clair RBI single and taking the lead on a sac fly by Salen Hawkins. MSU added an insurance run in the fifth on a single from freshman Kylee Edwards. Marron got the win with five strong innings, allowing just one earned run, and Wesley went the final two innings for the save.
The victory was No. 1,000 in the Bulldogs’ program history, the current era of which dates back to 1997. MSU also fielded a team from 1982-86.
“That’s a gritty, tough team on the other end,” Ricketts said. “They’re going to win a lot of ball games. The pitchers especially did a great job of attacking and getting us back in the dugout so we could manufacture some runs.”
The weekend finale did not go MSU’s way as Fresno State (11-4) took the lead in the first inning and never looked back, handing Ricketts’ team a 3-1 loss. St. Clair drove in MSU’s lone run in the fifth on a single that plated Nadia Barbary.
The Bulldogs return to Starkville to host the Bulldog Invitational this weekend, playing six games in four days against Southern Miss, Troy, Alcorn State and Samford. MSU will face the Trojans and Braves twice each.
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