STARKVILLE – The final week of the regular season has arrived for Mississippi State’s softball squad as it looks to head to the SEC Tournament with one more series victory in its back pocket.
The No. 16 Bulldogs (36-15, 8-15) are slated to cap the year off with a road trip to Oxford to face rival Ole Miss (30-22, 4-17) with the first game beginning at 1 p.m. today. Game 2 starts at 6 p.m. Friday, and the series concludes at 2 p.m. Saturday. The first two games will be broadcast on SEC Network+ and the final game will be aired on SEC Network.
Mississippi State owns a 50-35 all-time record over Ole Miss and has won eight of its last 10 games against the Rebels.
MSU is coming off its first SEC series victory since late March by grabbing two wins over visiting LSU during Super Bulldog Weekend. The Bulldogs got stellar 11-strikeout performances from Alyssa Faircloth and Peja Goold in Games 1 and 2 for 5-3 and 5-2 wins before falling in Game 3 5-3. The Tigers managed to find some success from Goold and Faircloth and pulled away from a 2-2 tie with MSU thanks to a run in the third inning and a two-run homer in the sixth.
“A couple mistakes here and there hurt us, but our pitchers have carried us all season long,” head coach Samantha Ricketts said after the LSU loss. “I thought the offense did a really good job in the first inning, telling Alyssa that we’re going to have her back and answering right back. That’s exactly what we want. We want to be able to compete as a team and stay together, knowing it’s going to take all of us. It can’t just be the pitchers or one part of the lineup. A lot of good things up and down the lineup and just a lot of people continuing to work hard for opportunities this weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing how we come back and bounce back next weekend at Ole Miss.”
The Bulldogs have leaned on their pitching all year and they’ll put their bullpen up against the surging Rebels, who have found themselves on a similar recent streak of success.
Last weekend Ole Miss conquered Auburn on the road for two wins to clinch its first SEC series since an upset win over then-ranked No. 4 Tennessee in late March. The Rebels struggled in the interim, suffering sweeps by Texas A&M and LSU before righting the ship with a 12-5 win over Southern Miss right before its series with Auburn.
Hitting has been a strong point for the Rebels this season. They boast the eighth-most hits in the conference (411) and are tied with Texas in fourth place for home runs (75). Twenty-one of those homers have been produced by Madi George, who ranks fourth in the SEC. As a team, Ole Miss sits at eighth in the SEC with a .300 batting average. Mississippi State is 11th in batting average (.223), hits (117) and home runs (17).
While the bats have been getting warm for MSU, the pitching has been hot all year with Faircloth and Goold leading the way. Faircloth leads the conference in strikeouts (210) and Goold is third with 159 on the season. Ole Miss sits at the bottom of the conference with a league-high 7.69 ERA and 125 walks and has struck out the fewest batters (79).
Both Ole Miss and MSU are looking to boost their seeding for the upcoming SEC Tournament, which begins May 5 at John Cropp Stadium in Lexington, Ky. MSU sits at 10th in the conference and Ole Miss is stabled at 13th.
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