STARKVILLE — Raelin Chaffin was so dominant early in the season that fans may have been surprised to find out that her ERA in Southeastern Conference play entering last weekend was a shade over 5.
Mississippi State’s ace was coming off a few shaky outings against Texas and Tennessee, and the long ball was her biggest issue — she allowed eight home runs in five outings against the Longhorns and Volunteers after giving up just one all year before that. But Chaffin looked like her old self again and earned two complete-game wins over the weekend to help the No. 16 Bulldogs take the series against Missouri at Nusz Park.
Chaffin was stellar Friday evening, giving up just two hits and one walk while striking out five in a 7-0 victory. She had an early blip Sunday, allowing a two-run Taylor Ebbs homer in the first inning, but retired the last 11 batters she faced as the Bulldogs’ offense shortened the game for her in a 10-2, five-inning win.
“Last week (against Tennessee) was just a little hectic all around. But my bullpens were very normal. We didn’t really talk a whole lot about last week besides just flush it and move on. That’s why I could be successful,” Chaffin said. “The whole thing in the SEC is just keeping hitters off balance, so if I can keep a good offense off balance, I win.”
MSU offense roars to life
The bats had been up and down heading into the weekend, but against a Tigers pitching staff that has the SEC’s second-worst team ERA, the Bulldogs never took their foot off the gas.
It started, as usual, with Sierra Sacco, who beat out an infield single to lead off the first inning Friday and promptly scored on Nadia Barbary’s RBI double. Sacco singled again in the second, then capped the scoring in the opener with a two-run double in the sixth.
The power also came through for MSU (33-11, 9-6 SEC). Kiarra Sells, batting at the bottom of the order, added to the lead with a two-run homer in the second, and shortstop Kylee Edwards hit a solo shot in the fifth.
“It’s a lot easier to hit that way whenever you have eight hitters behind you,” Sacco said. “It frees me up, and it’s just a good time whenever everybody’s hitting and everyone’s having a good day.”
Sacco stayed hot Saturday, launching a game-tying grand slam in the second. Ella Wesolowski, who missed time early in the year with a concussion and has mostly come off the bench, was 4-for-4 with two doubles, although it came in a losing effort as the Bulldogs fell 12-8 despite collecting 12 hits. MSU wasted Wesolowski’s leadoff double in the fourth and Edwards’ leadoff single in the fifth, and its seventh-inning rally fizzled after the first four batters reached.
But after falling behind in the first Sunday for the second straight game, the Bulldogs bounced right back. Wesolowski tied the game in the home half of the first with a two-run double, and Sells gave MSU the lead with a leadoff homer in the second. Morgan Bernardini led off the third with a blast of her own before the Bulldogs pulled away in the fourth.
Freshman Morgan Stiles followed Edwards’ leadoff walk with a two-run home run, and Sells hit a three-run shot for her second homer of the day later in the inning. Sacco reached base in all four of her plate appearances with three singles and a walk, raising her batting average to .504 and her on-base percentage to .599.
“We’ve been working on trying to trust each other and continue to figure out different ways to fight,” Sells said. “(Saturday) was a really good representation of that, and that led into (Sunday). Even though the result isn’t exactly how we wanted it (Saturday), we’re going to come out here today and we’re going to give our all, and we did really well at that.”
Bulldogs still don’t have a second trusted arm
Missouri (21-24, 3-12) hit Delainey Everett hard Saturday with four runs on four hits in the first inning, and after Kayley Lenger’s leadoff home run in the second, Everett’s day was done. Lexi Sosa briefly stopped the bleeding, but the Tigers scored six runs in the fourth, the inning that ended up being the difference in the game. Madison Walker hit a grand slam off Chaffin, who had inherited all three baserunners from Sosa.
MSU is trying to help Josey Marron regain her confidence, and she allowed one run on a homer by Ebbs in her two innings of work. The Bulldogs have a team ERA of 4.85 in SEC play, and Chaffin has thrown more than 62 percent of their innings against conference opponents.
With just three weeks left in the regular season, head coach Samantha Ricketts and pitching coach Taryne Mowatt-McKinney are running out of time to figure out who they will trust beyond Chaffin in the postseason. And next weekend sees MSU head on the road to play four-time defending national champion Oklahoma.
Still, this was a series win the Bulldogs needed against the SEC’s last-place team to stay in the NCAA Tournament hosting picture.
“We just talked about how we continue to learn from these losses and how we respond to adversity,” Ricketts said. “That’s what postseason feels like. That’s what a super regional feels like. It’s that pressure, the adversity of things not going your way. We talked about learning from that moment and how we showed signs of it.”
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