Many teams play the “Nobody believed in us!” card after a big win in the postseason.
Mississippi State softball is one of the few for whom that statement is true.
The Bulldogs were given little to no shot to win the NCAA Tallahassee Regional, hosted by No. 2 overall seed Florida State. In a poll of five USA TODAY Sports experts, all five projected the Seminoles to win. Only one even mentioned another team: third-seeded South Florida.
It was understandable. MSU struggled to close Southeastern Conference play. The Bulldogs lost home games to Central Arkansas, South Alabama and Furman early on. And Florida State was the hottest team in the country, winning 14 straight games.
But the Bulldogs subverted everyone’s expectations — except their own.
“I think it’s just the mentality that this group has had,” coach Samantha Ricketts said. “From the very first weekend out, it’s been, ‘Why not us? Nobody’s going to pick us. Everybody’s going to count us out. Good, we don’t want anyone to pick us. It’s us against the world.’ They really bought into belief and knew that as long as everybody in that dugout — all 24 — are bought in, that’s all we need.”
That led the Bulldogs to four consecutive wins at the Seminole Softball Complex, with the final two coming Sunday over the host team. MSU became the first school to ever eliminate a No. 2 overall seed in regionals and did so by coming out of the losers’ bracket to stun Florida State.
Bracket busting
It was a historic achievement in a sport where the top teams nearly always advance. All 16 regional hosts proceeded to Super Regionals in 2017 and 2018; the next year, only the No. 15 seed missed out. All of the top eight seeds made Super Regionals in 2021.
Mississippi State isn’t the only unseeded team to wreak havoc on this year’s bracket. In Supers, the Bulldogs will host Arizona, the No. 3 seed in the Columbia Regional; unseeded teams Oregon State and Stanford will also match up in the next round. The Beavers emerged from the Knoxville Regional, hosted by No. 11 Tennessee; the Cardinal took down No. 6 Alabama at Rhoads Stadium in Tuscaloosa.
Texas also beat No. 13 Washington on Sunday night to become the fifth unseeded team to advance.
Stanford had the edge by taking down the Tide in Saturday’s winners’ bracket game, but the Bulldogs didn’t even possess that advantage. Instead, Mississippi State — dealt a loss by USF on Friday — had to crawl out of the losers’ bracket. MSU beat Howard and USF on Saturday before beating FSU twice to win the regional.
With home-field advantage, a loaded roster and a 2-0 record, the Seminoles squandered a huge chance. Eighty-nine percent of teams to begin regional play 2-0 go on to advance; Florida State became part of the 11 percent on Sunday.
A program first
Solely on the strength of its first win over FSU, Mississippi State clinched the best postseason in program history.
The Bulldogs had never won three games in a single regional, let alone four, until Sunday. MSU had reached the regional final three straight times dating back to 2018 and did the same in 2005.
But they had never even made it to a clinching game, always entering the regional final with one loss in the double-elimination bracket. That was the case this season, but the Bulldogs played nearly flawless softball to stay alive.
Ricketts said the successful season began as soon as Mississippi State went down to No. 5 Oklahoma State last May in the 2021 Stillwater Regional.
“We knew that this was the goal: to do something that we hadn’t done before,” she said.
From the beginning
Ricketts insisted all year that Mississippi State’s demanding early-season schedule would pay off in the end.
The Bulldogs’ play in the regional proved her right.
MSU opened 2022 by playing eventual No. 1 overall seed Oklahoma and No. 5 seed UCLA in California. Coupled with a tough SEC slate, the Bulldogs played one of the 10 hardest schedules in the country.
During the regular season, too, they proved to be full of surprises. MSU won the middle game of road series at Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky and was highly competitive in two out of three games at Alabama. The Bulldogs swept Ole Miss at home and won a series against Missouri at Nusz Park.
“People didn’t expect us to go down to Florida and take a game from them,” Ricketts said. “People didn’t expect us to take a series from Missouri.”
Nobody outside Starkville saw Sunday coming, either.
But that’s how the Bulldogs wanted it.
“Everybody’s going to count us out,” catcher Mia Davidson said. “We’ve just got to focus on each other and believe in one another.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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