No. 23 MSU Softball Continues In-State Dominance With Win Over Ole Miss
OXFORD, Miss. – In the four years since Samantha Ricketts arrived in Starkville, Mississippi State has dominated its in-state competition. The No. 23 Bulldogs are 25-4 against teams from Mississippi under Ricketts and they picked up their 26th win Friday night in a 5-1 victory against Ole Miss.
Mississippi State (18-3, 1-0 SEC) never trailed in the game, keeping their streak of leading Ole Miss (15-6, 0-1 SEC) intact. The Bulldogs haven’t trailed the Lady Rebels in 23 innings played in the last three years and has a chance to extend that streak over the next two days.
MSU ensured it got out to an early lead in the first inning. The Bulldogs loaded the bases on a walk and two batters hit-by-pitches. Then Kylee Edwards reached base with on a two-out fielding error by Ole Miss pitcher Anna Borgen. The error allowed Nadia Barbary to score and give MSU a 1-0 lead.
“I thought we did a good job of coming out ready to attack,” MSU coach Samantha Ricketts said. “Scoring first is always a goal of ours. We couldn’t quite get the big inning, but just trying to make adjustments and find ways to scratch a couple [runs] across.”
The slim lead was all Josey Marron (8-0) and the Bulldogs’ defense needed, though. The Lady Rebels went three up, three down in the bottom of the first inning, with Marron recording the first of her three strikeouts. She would finish the game with just one run on three hits and four walks to keep her perfect record intact.
“It starts with Josey on the mound, just getting ground ball after ground ball,” Ricketts said. “Both Kylee [Edwards] and Salen [Hawkins] are just excellent. They’ve got so much range, big arms. They make such fast turns, and it’s something that we haven’t really done the last few years. They make it look easy, which is huge for a defense and gets us back in the dugout faster.”
Paige Cook extended MSU’s lead in the second inning with a sacrifice fly to right field and Madisyn Kennedy drew a bases-loaded walk to score Brylie St. Clair.
The Bulldogs added a pair of runs in the top of the seventh inning on a Salen Hawkins single to left field that drove in two runs.
The Bulldogs and Lady Rebels will continue their SEC-opening series at 3 p.m. Saturday in Oxford.
