Mississippi State’s offense has been among the Southeastern Conference’s best all season long, but the No. 18 Bulldogs picked the worst possible time to go cold.
Wednesday night’s 3-2 loss at Samford was MSU’s fourth defeat in its last five games, and State has scored just six runs in those four losses. Head coach Samantha Ricketts’ team also fell to No. 24 in the updated RPI, and the loss to a Samford team that entered the day at No. 186 resulted in a big hit to MSU’s chances of being a top-16 national seed and hosting an NCAA Regional for the first time in program history.
UCLA transfer Lexi Sosa made her fifth start of the season in the circle and held Samford scoreless for the first three innings, but State’s offense was held hitless by Jordyn Partain until the fourth. Sierra Sacco singled and Nadia Barbary walked to open the fourth inning and both ultimately scored on a single by Jessie Blaine to give MSU (30-14) a 2-0 lead.
Samford (17-27) struck right back against Sosa, tying the game on Olivia Shaw’s two-run home run, and reliever McKenzie Newcomb shut down the MSU bats in the fifth, sixth and seventh. Sacco reached on a throwing error to start the sixth and moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt, but Newcomb struck out the dangerous Madisyn Kennedy and then retired Blaine on a fly ball to center.
Kennedy, one of the best power hitters in all of college softball for much of the season, is just 2-for-14 without an extra-base hit over her last six games.
The MSU seventh was playing out similarly — Ella Wesolowski led off with a single and Jadyn Burney bunted her to second. But Samford caught pinch-runner Kat Wallace in no-man’s land between second and third on Kylee Edwards’ grounder to the left side, and Salen Hawkins then flied out to right to end the inning.
In her third inning of work for State, Matalasi Faapito found immediate trouble in the bottom of the seventh. Katie Campbell led off with a single and pinch-runner Lindsey Nelson scored all the way from first on Shaw’s game-winning double into the gap in right-center.
MSU now heads to Missouri for a three-game series against the No. 14 Tigers from Saturday to Monday, with all three games televised on the SEC Network.
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