STARKVILLE — Sierra Sacco had homered just once in her first season at Mississippi State when she stepped into the batter’s box to face Stanford’s NiJaree Canady, the best pitcher in college softball, in the fourth inning of an NCAA regional winners’ bracket game last May.

A transfer from Louisiana Tech, Sacco came to Starkville as a slapper, a left-handed hitter who would beat balls into the ground and use her speed to leg out infield hits. But this time, she turned on the first pitch from Canady, an off-speed pitch that caught too much of the plate, and launched it over the center-field fence to put the Bulldogs on the board.

As Sacco enters her senior season, she has decided to change her approach and will hit away rather than slap most of the time. She batted .347 in 2024, but just 11 of her 52 hits went for extra bases.

“Slapping only works so well at this level,” Sacco said. “The more you hit ground balls and the more you hit it to the shortstop, the more outs you make. So instead of me betting on shortstops making a bad decision or trying to hit it past one player, I want to work on hitting it past all eight players.”

The first pitcher Sacco will face this year? It’s likely to be Canady, who transferred to Texas Tech over the summer with a record NIL deal. No. 24 MSU opens the season Friday against the No. 13 Red Raiders at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Clearwater, Florida, where the Bulldogs will also be challenged against No. 7 Duke, Penn State and No. 19 Nebraska.

That jam-packed opening weekend will help prepare MSU, which finished .500 or better in Southeastern Conference play last year for the first time since 2007, for an even more daunting SEC.

What was already the deepest conference in the country added four-time defending national champion Oklahoma as well as a Texas team that has reached the championship series twice in the last three years. The Bulldogs are one of just four SEC teams who will play both the Sooners and Longhorns this spring.

“It’s going to set us up for the rest of the year, because there will not be another weekend where we see that many number one arms,” head coach Samantha Ricketts said. “You go into SEC play, we’ll see some great pitchers, but they don’t have five of them on one staff. It’s a good chance to see where we measure up, what type of pitching is a weakness for us that we can shore up before we get into SEC play.”

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish

MSU started hot last season, particularly with the bats, but scored just 16 runs over its last 12 games and was shut out four times in that stretch. The Bulldogs’ top power bat, Madisyn Kennedy, is now playing professionally, while outfielder Paige Cook is out of eligibility and second baseman Salen Hawkins transferred to Alabama.

Five offensive starters are back, led by Sacco in center field, Ella Wesolowski behind the plate, Nadia Barbary at third base and Kylee Edwards at shortstop. In addition to her outstanding bat control, Sacco was 19-for-19 on stolen base attempts and did not make an error all year. Wesolowski batted .318 as a freshman and drew comparisons to the legendary Mia Davidson, while Barbary led MSU with 17 doubles last year as a sophomore.

“We started so strong offensively, and the last couple weeks we just could not find it,” Ricketts said. “We need everybody on board when we change up the way that we’re going to train in season. It’s going to look different, but it’s all for the common goal of finishing and being at our best at the end of the year and not just the beginning.”

Ricketts is excited about what freshman infielder Morgan Stiles can do with the bat, and outfielder Kiarra Sells has not played much in two years with the Bulldogs but had a huge summer in the Lone Star State Collegiate League. Jessie Blaine, who transferred from Auburn after the 2023 season, hit .309 last year and was second on the team with six home runs.

MSU added just one transfer in the offseason, bringing in pitcher Raelin Chaffin from LSU, but the Bulldogs have eight freshmen on the roster. Their incoming class was ranked 11th nationally by Softball America.

“Morgan Stiles, she is a very tough out,” junior pitcher Josey Marron said. “She attacks and plays so fearlessly, and she’s going to be huge for us this season. I’m really excited to see what she does. And the freshman class as a whole, they’re all so mature and all play without fear, and they’re going all out every play, max effort all the time.”

Marron, Chaffin are the veterans in the circle

With a bigger workload as a sophomore, Marron saw her numbers deteriorate somewhat last year but still had a respectable 3.68 ERA in 114 innings. Aspen Wesley has moved on, but MSU picked up Chaffin in the portal for her final year of eligibility after she was 11-5 with a 2.86 ERA in 2024 with LSU.

Chaffin overcame a battle with thyroid cancer over the summer, and she did not require chemotherapy and is all ready to go for her senior season.

“Our staff was incredible. I never felt an ounce of not being supported,” Chaffin said. “I got calls and texts every day back home, which I was not expecting because I was still fairly new here. It was incredible. I couldn’t ask for any better, and that just shows how good the staff is here.”

The Bulldogs also bring back sophomore left-hander Delainey Everett, a hard thrower who pitched well in relief last year. Former UCLA pitcher Lexi Sosa is back for her final college season, with sophomore Hosanna Lindblade and freshmen Sara Phillips and Abigail Stevens rounding out the pitching staff.

“I’ve enjoyed getting to know them, each and every one of them,” Wesolowski said. “A big thing for me as a catcher is to learn how they pitch but also their personalities and what they need (in the circle) if I need to call time and talk to them. Just learning how their windups are so I can better receive for them in the game and get more strikes called.”

Underdogs once again

MSU has two non-conference home tournaments plus a number of midweek games, and will play some quality mid-major competition at the Rocket City Softball Showcase in Madison, Alabama. During their bye week in the middle of SEC play, the Bulldogs head north for a three-game series at Northwestern, which has won the Big Ten in three straight years.

Conference play opens at Nusz Park from Mar. 8-10 against Auburn, with Texas, Missouri and Ole Miss also scheduled to visit Starkville. MSU faces Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kentucky for its four road SEC series.

The Bulldogs were picked to finish 12th in the new 15-team SEC by the conference’s coaches, ahead of Auburn, Ole Miss and South Carolina.

“We return a lot of big pieces from last year, and this program, we’re used to being counted out,” Ricketts said. “They’re competitive, they’re a little more serious, they get after every day at practice, they want to be pushed, and they want the challenge. They don’t care about the outside rankings, whatever they might be. They know we’re good and we can go out there and make a little noise this season.”