STARKVILLE – It took a complete effort from MSU’s trio of weekend starters to take No. 1 Tennessee to the wire three days in a row.
Sophomore Leila Ammon and senior Peja Goold tossed three innings each before Alyssa Faircloth took over in the seventh inning with two runners in scoring position. Faircloth recorded back-to-back strikeouts with the bases loaded before a line drive up the middle got two home with two gone, boosting Tennessee’s lead to 4-1.
The No. 12-ranked Bulldogs were out of juice offensively, falling to 27-4 with the Vols taking the series 2-1.
It was a historic weekend at Nusz Park, with a record crowd on Saturday witnessing a 1-0 walk-off win against the top team in the country, and the weekend total of 4,818 attendees seeing the Bulldogs go toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the country. It might have been validating for the team’s self-belief and the belief among fans that this MSU squad can go far this year, but it wasn’t the result that the team or head coach Samantha Ricketts wanted.
“When you see elite pitching staffs like that, you’ve got to be able to do a better job swinging within our game plan,” Ricketts said on Sunday after the series. “We got exposed with that this weekend. Not the offense that we expect from ourselves, not even just the results, but the approach. The biggest message today is that when we get all three phases working, we can compete with anyone. We had great pitching and defense, but finding our bats is the difference in taking the series or not.”
Both Games One and Two were decided in the final inning. A Friday matchup that went to nine innings saw the Vols break through with a three-run homer in the ninth inning, and a Saturday clash yielded similar defensive prowess from both teams before Taylor Troutman’s walk-off bomb.
The Bulldogs were right there, but a combined six hits from three games didn’t cut it against a Vols team that doesn’t make mistakes.
Gabby Schaeffer, MSU’s lone hitter on Sunday, showed the kind of self-belief that the Bulldogs were looking for at the plate when she tied the game in the third inning. Her solo home run was the only blemish on an otherwise dominant statsheet for Vols pitcher Karlyn Pickens, and it served as vindication for the freshman’s confidence in herself and her team.
“I kept telling myself: This pitcher’s not better than me. She might be No. 1 in the nation, but she’s not beating me,” Schaeffer said. “We talked about beforehand, going out, having confidence and looking for a certain pitch, especially with (Pickens). I did that, saw it and put my best swing on it.”
The freshman expressed confidence not only in herself, but in the team’s ability to get over the hurdle of playing as ruthless of a schedule as teams in this league have to do.
“Me, as a player coming out of travel ball and seeing a lot of these girls I played against on these SEC teams, I think it’s not thinking too big of it,” she said. “It’s almost like travel ball, except they’re wearing a certain name on their uniform. That’s it. It’s just a name on a uniform. Anybody can beat anybody on a given day. We might be struggling a little bit, but we’ll get there and we will hit the ball and collect these runs that we need.”
MSU recorded its best ever start through nonconference play with a 26-2 record, showing off its own ruthless pitching staff in Power 4 tests both at home and on the road. Slow offensive outings proved costly against Belmont and Clemson, but both games were followed by balanced wins the following day.
The elite level of pitching on display from Tennessee might have been too much to handle this weekend, but going forward, it’s a vital sample size for MSU’s hitters to learn from.
“That’s just what you see at the elite level with top teams like this,” Ricketts said. “It was good to see, it was good for our hitters to experience, because that’s something that , if we want to take the next step on the big stage, it’s going to be against pitchers and pitching coaches like that.”
The Bulldogs are back at home on Wednesday against UT Martin before traveling to face No. 15 Georgia in Athens next weekend.
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