A Southeastern Conference team traveling to Big Ten country in March does not happen often, but Mississippi State was unfazed by the chilly, windy conditions at Northwestern’s Sharon J. Drysdale Field.
The No. 18 Bulldogs scored 10 runs in the fourth inning of Friday’s series opener en route to a 14-0, run-rule victory in Evanston, Illinois. Wildcats ace Lauren Boyd quieted MSU’s bats in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, a 4-2 Northwestern win, before the Bulldogs again used a big fourth inning to win the rubber game 12-2 in five.
“I love that response, the way we came out and just answering back after the loss in (Saturday’s first game),” MSU head coach Samantha Ricketts said. “The game’s funny that way, and things fall your way. We really played some of our poorest softball in the first couple innings of (the middle game). It was just good to see the response, the maturity to know that we had to quickly forget it and get back to playing Mississippi State softball in (the finale).”
Even the runs Chaffin allows aren’t all on her
Bulldogs ace Raelin Chaffin continued her outstanding form Friday in a five-inning complete-game shutout. She scattered seven hits, but all seven were singles, and she held the Wildcats to 2-for-12 with runners on base and 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
Ricketts gave Chaffin the start again in Saturday’s first game, and she had appeared to escape a first-inning jam with a strikeout of Bridget Donahey. But the third strike was in the dirt and the runners took off, and instead of throwing to first base, catcher Jessie Blaine threw to third, where Kelsey Nader beat the force play. That loaded the bases for Izzy Cunnea, who blasted a three-run triple off the center field wall to give Northwestern its first runs of the series.
The Wildcats added one more run in the second on an error, and that was enough support for Boyd. Lexi Sosa held Northwestern scoreless in three innings of relief, but Boyd allowed just four hits in a complete game. Two of them were solo home runs, with Kiarra Sells going deep in the fourth and Blaine sending one out in the sixth.
Sells joined an exclusive club with her blast landing on top of Welsh-Ryan Arena, home of Northwestern basketball, which looms over the softball field just behind the left-field fence.
“I had absolutely no idea where it was going,” Sells said. “I didn’t even see it land. I didn’t know where it went. (My teammates) were telling me where it went, saying, ‘It landed on top of the building.’ I was like, ‘Oh, really? That’s cool!’ I didn’t even think that was possible.”
MSU jumps on the rest of Northwestern’s staff
Boyd, who missed all of last season with an injury, could only throw one game in the series, and the Bulldogs (27-6) were all over the Wildcats’ other pitchers. Nadia Barbary was 4-for-4 with a double and a triple in Friday’s game and Sierra Sacco was 3-for-4. Morgan Stiles led off the big fourth inning with a solo homer before Kylee Edwards broke the game wide open with a grand slam.
Sacco’s 29-game on-base streak came to an end in Saturday’s loss, but she made up for it in the final game, reaching base on all four of her plate appearances with three hits. MSU scored twice in the first inning, then put up seven in the fourth, including a grand slam from Sells. Sells had been hitless in four straight games entering Saturday before breaking out of her mini-slump with a vengeance.
Left-hander Delainey Everett pitched shutout ball until the fifth, when Northwestern (14-11) plated a pair of runs before Chaffin entered to record the final out.
The Bulldogs conclude their road trip with a midweek game Wednesday at Southern Miss, then return home Friday to start a big three-game SEC series against No. 2 Texas.
“We did a great job again of attacking and scoring first, then finding ways to continue the momentum in the middle innings,” Ricketts said. “That was something that was a focus for us, that we wanted to do and get our best swings off, stay on the attack, do what we do well. I loved the way that they responded and then up and down the lineup, everybody contributing. It was good to see.”
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