STARKVILLE — Mississippi State is returning to the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row and the 11th time in the last 13 postseasons. The Bulldogs are heading to the Lubbock Regional, hosted by No. 12 seed Texas Tech, starting with a first-round game against Washington on Friday night (7 p.m. CT, ESPN2).
Head coach Samantha Ricketts’ team was pushing for one of the top 16 national seeds for most of the year, which would have given MSU its first regional at home in program history, but a few bad losses early in the season hurt the Bulldogs’ cause. MSU’s hosting hopes were extinguished with a shutout loss to LSU in its first Southeastern Conference Tournament game.
“The goal was to host, but keeping ourselves in the hosting conversation all year long is definitely a step in that right direction for us,” Ricketts said. “We want to go be a really tough 2-seed somewhere, and we got a tough regional to do it in, but that’s what the postseason is all about. You’re playing the best of the best.”
The Bulldogs (37-17, 13-11 SEC) finished above .500 in conference play for the first time since 2001. They picked up two big early non-conference wins in Clearwater, Florida, including one against the Red Raiders in extra innings. Texas Tech is led by ace pitcher NiJaree Canady, who MSU also saw in the NCAA Tournament last year when she was at Stanford.
Ricketts and company had 11 wins against the RPI top 25, the 10th-most in the country. Those included series wins over Alabama and Ole Miss and single victories over Texas and Tennessee, which are both in the top 10. But an early March home loss to Northwestern State was a huge black mark on the Bulldogs’ resume, and MSU also dropped a neutral-site game to Jacksonville State and a midweek at home to Middle Tennessee.
Senior center fielder Sierra Sacco, a First-Team All-SEC honoree, leads the Bulldogs offensively with a .461/.553/.782 triple slash, 16 doubles, 11 home runs and 16 stolen bases. Junior third baseman Nadia Barbary, who hits behind Sacco in the second spot in the lineup, earned Second-Team All-SEC honors with a 1.029 OPS and 10 homers. Kiarra Sells, a junior outfielder in her first year as a starter, gives MSU plenty of slugging from the bottom of the order.
“Our offense really is what we hang our hat on a lot of times, so we needed it to be strong in the (most important) part of the year,” Ricketts said. “It was a lot more lifting on game days, lifting at least three times a week, if not four, during the season. Typically, you would cut back a little bit. It was a lot of buy-in from the players. The weeks get long, the bodies get tired, but getting them to understand the ‘why’ behind all of it, it was for this reason right here.”
Raelin Chaffin, a senior who previously spent three seasons at LSU, has carried the Bulldogs in the circle with a 2.65 ERA and a 21-9 record in 171 ⅔ innings pitched. She has 187 strikeouts against just 46 walks and has pitched almost exactly half of MSU’s innings for the season, including 59 percent in SEC play. Sophomore lefty Delainey Everett, junior Josey Marron and senior Lexi Sosa round out the pitching staff.
The Huskies (34-17, 12-9 Big Ten) were one of the last four teams in the tournament field but have a strong postseason pedigree, including a national championship in 2009. All regionals are double elimination, so the Bulldogs will face either the Red Raiders (45-12, 20-4 Big 12) or Ivy League Tournament champion Brown (33-15, 13-8 Ivy) on Saturday.
“Typically, after the SEC Tournament before the selection show, we’ll give them a couple days off. That wasn’t this group,” Ricketts said. “We got right back at it. We’ve practiced every day the last few days, just making sure we can make the adjustments. (The LSU game) was probably the worst offensive game we’ve had all year. Just not swinging in a plan. We looked back on our heels, we looked defensive, and that’s not at all what our identity is as a team.”
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