STARKVILLE — Amanda Ivy doesn’t care what the situation is when she comes to bat.

There might be no outs and nobody on, or maybe one out with a runner in scoring position or two outs with the bases loaded. She doesn’t care because the mind-set is the same every time she or any of her Mississippi State softball teammates step to the plate.

Ivy demonstrated that attitude as she delivered a two-out two-run single with the bases loaded in the second inning to help MSU beat No. 3 Auburn 6-3 Saturday afternoon at Nusz Park to even up the Southeastern Conference series.

“We stick to the plan,” Ivy said. “We go up there, it doesn’t matter how many outs we have. One out, so what? Two outs, so what? We just stick to what we do. We stick to the plan and we come up big sometimes and sometimes we come up short. But we go up there knowing we can do it and we stick to our plan.”

The Bulldogs (19-7, 1-1 SEC) lost 3-2 in 14 innings Friday night to the Tigers (25-4, 2-3) to get conference play underway. The rubber game is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today.

In the second, Kayla Winfield came up with the bases loaded and one out, but she popped out to the shortstop, leaving it on Ivy’s shoulders to deliver. Ivy hit one down the right field line that bounced foul, but it looked like it could have gone fair. But with a 1-2 count, Ivy singled to left field off Auburn starter Marcy Harper to drive home pinch runner Carmen Carter and Calyn Adams and give MSU a 2-0 lead.

“She sparked us and got those runs in,” junior Katie Anne Bailey said. “We just say pass the bat, you’re not trying to do anything more than get a base hit, put the ball in play and make the defense work. I think those two back-to-back hits put us in a really good position.”

Bailey followed Ivy’s single with a two-run triple to right field to make the score 4-0. She later scored on an illegal pitch and the Bulldogs led 5-0 after two.

Of the eight runs MSU has scored this weekend, seven have come with two outs.

“A lot of confidence in the fact that we’re all willing to compete,” MSU coach Vann Stuedeman said. “We don’t count ourselves out ever. When you do score with two outs, the confidence does rise.”

Along with giving the offense confidence, the two-out hitting gave starting pitcher Holly Ward confidence. Even though she allowed a run in the third, she retired eight in a row from the fourth to the seventh.

“That definitely makes you relax a little bit, that makes you feel really confident out there and you know that you can just grind out there with the best defense behind you,” Ward said.

Ward (9-2) allowed five hits and one earned run to pick up the win. She struck out four and walked three. She ran into trouble early and found herself in big trouble in the seventh. Auburn’s Kasey Cooper and Jade Rhodes had RBI singles to bring the winning run to the plate, but Ward collected herself and got Courtney Shea to ground out to end the game.

The Bulldogs gave Ward an insurance run when Taylor Kelly delivered her first hit, scoring Bailey, Kelly’s first RBI, with two outs in the fifth.

On Friday, MSU led 2-1 until Rhodes hit a solo home run in the sixth to tie things at 2. Cooper scored on a wild pitch in the top of the 14th for the winning run. MSU’s Alexis Silkwood (0-2) threw a career-high 13 1/3 innings and 216 pitches to take the loss.

It was an emotional loss for the Bulldogs, but to their credit they put it behind them and came out with a fire that was not going to be matched.

“It was just the mindset of right back,” Ivy said. “It’s tough that someone had to lose that game, but we’re the team that fired back.”

The two-out hitting and scoring is really encouraging for Stuedeman and the Bulldogs moving forward because it is showing the fight and will of her team.

“We don’t go away,” Stuedeman said. “We want to fight in every situation. Really nothing changes with two outs. We want to be competitive on every pitch. Because of that, a lot of times we’ll get some energy going with the two outs.”

Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait

Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.