It started back in 2015, when Samantha Ricketts had just become an assistant coach for Mississippi State.

Ricketts and her younger sister Keilani both starred at Oklahoma, and in doing so, they helped put Samoan and Polynesian softball players in the spotlight. After two years playing professionally and stints on the coaching staff at Oklahoma and Wichita State, Ricketts arrived in Starkville before the 2015 season, and her heritage helped draw Sarai Niu, a first baseman from San Diego, far away from home to Mississippi.

“The start of our Samoan pipeline was Sarai Niu,” Ricketts said. “It was just a connection that we had built up through the recruiting process. She knew that I had Samoan blood as well, and at the time, it was my family and my sister playing college softball, and the name was out there and it was putting the Polynesian softball players in the media a little bit more.”

Niu was a four-year starter for the Bulldogs from 2016-19, and she helped recruit outfielder and fellow Southern California product Chloe Malau’ulu to MSU three years behind her. Malau’ulu became a starter as a sophomore and was a key part of the Bulldogs’ 2022 team that reached the program’s first-ever super regional, putting up a .332/.422/.539 triple slash with 12 doubles and eight home runs.

The pipeline grew stronger after Ricketts was named head coach in July 2019. Before that, though, Niu and Malau’ulu had helped bring on board one of the most prolific power hitters in program history in Arizona State transfer Fa Leilua, also from Southern California. In just three seasons at MSU — one of which was the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign — Leilua hit 51 home runs while batting .352 and slugging .752.

“Sarai was our first one, and she helped us to recruit Chloe Malau’ulu and they both helped bring in Fa Leilua,” Ricketts said. “Particularly Samoan players from Southern California knew that they had a sense of community and family in the SEC, all the way out in Starkville, Mississippi, and it’s just continued on every year since then.”

The Bulldogs have three players of Samoan descent on this year’s roster — fifth-year pitcher Matalasi Faapito, sophomore Leilani Pulemau (who medically retired due to an eye condition prior to the season but is still with the team) and sophomore Kiara Sells. Faapito and Pulemau, like Niu, Malau’ulu and Leilua, are from Southern California, while Sells grew up in the small town of Jasper, Texas.

All three, as well as Ricketts, will be honored at Sunday’s game as MSU holds its annual Samoan Heritage Day. For Faapito, it will also be her final game at Nusz Park unless the Bulldogs end up hosting an NCAA regional.

In a video posted on MSU softball’s social media platforms, Sells named Sapasui Pisupo — a chop suey and corned beef dish — as her favorite Samoan food. Ricketts said she enjoys Panipopo, a coconut sweet roll, and Faapito said her favorite is Palusami, which is meat and coconut milk wrapped in a taro leaf and cooked underground.

“A big thing with Samoan culture is respect for your elders,” Ricketts said. “Every Samoan household, it’s all about taking care of your family and your loved ones. To see players that from the outside, for an opposing team, might look big and strong and scary… but then you know them off the field and they wouldn’t hurt a fly. They’re going to do everything in their power to be there for their family, whether it’s their softball family or their family back home.”