STARKVILLE — A Super Bulldog Weekend that began Thursday with the Mississippi State University baseball team winning in walk-off fashion ended Sunday afternoon with the MSU softball team doing the same thing.
Ka’ili Smith’s double to the right-center field gap scored Jessica Cooley with the game-winner in the home half of the seventh inning as MSU closed a weekend sweep of the University of Kentucky with a 3-2 Southeastern Conference win before a crowd of 671 at the MSU Softball Field.
With the win, MSU clinched its second straight berth in the SEC tournament. The eight-team, single-elimination event begins May 10 in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The win also helped MSU clinch a winning regular season for the first time since 2009.
Auburn University’s loss to the University of Arkansas also enabled MSU to take a major step toward nailing down third place in the league’s Western Division.
“We were able to solidify some things today, so it was a major day for our program,” MSU coach Vann Stuedeman said. “The numbers are really where we need them to be (to earn an NCAA regional berth). Our strength of schedule is fourth in the nation. Our RPI is 31st. Those are both really good.
“However, we have seven regular-season games left. We have to treat each of those seven games the same way we treated each game this weekend.”
The MSU baseball team took all three weekend games against the University of Tennessee, including two wins in walk-off fashion. The softball team followed with three one-run decisions, an occurrence that last took place in 2007 at the University of South Carolina. The softball team also had two walk-offs. The latest came 24 hours after a 2-1, eight-inning win Saturday.
“We make it exciting,” said Smith, a senior catcher. “We had so many fans here. I hope they went home happy. I can’t tell you how much confidence this team has. We feel like someone is going to always come through the big hit.”
April has been kind to the Bulldogs. After sputtering to a 19-18 mark, the Bulldogs have won nine of their last 10, including seven straight and six straight in league play. The sweep of Kentucky, along with last weekend’s sweep of the University of Mississippi, gives MSU its first back-to-back SEC sweeps since 2001, when the program beat Ole Miss and the University of Tennessee.
“This is huge,” said Cooley, a junior outfielder said. “We are jelling as a team, and on the field everything is really clicking. We pitched it awesome this weekend. Our hitting was good and our defense was good. It was great having all the people of Starkville coming out to support us this weekend. We wanted to show them a good time.
“It’s all about momentum, and I think we will carry a lot of that into our final two weeks of the season, especially (the final conference series at) Auburn.”
A season-best 2,139 fans turned out for the series. It was the first home conference series against an unranked team. The Bulldogs (28-19, 11-14 SEC) had faced four league foes in the top 12 of the national rankings at the MSU Softball Field. This weekend, smiles, Bulldog Bingo, and a lot of cowbells helped make the 1-10 start in conference home games a distant memory.
“Sunday morning I went to the Starkville Café, one person asked for my autograph,” Stuedeman said. “Two other young girls came up and wanted me to take my picture with them. That is when you know you are making a difference. It really made me feel good. Shelby Fisher (a junior outfielder) was talking about singing Hail State (the school’s fight song) after the game.
“She said Saturday she had goose bumps because instead of singing to one section like we normally do, we were singing to the entire stadium. The stands were packed. Really the fans made the difference. When you win one-run games, you have to have that little extra. The crowd support was that little extra this weekend.”
Kentucky’s inability to field the softball didn’t hurt, either. The Wildcats (23-26, 10-12 SEC) led 2-0 before making two two-out errors that allowed a pair of scores in the fifth.
The squads appeared to be headed for extra innings after the first two Bulldogs went down to start the seventh. Instead, Cooley, the team’s leading home run hitter, walked.
“KK (Smith) had been on base every at-bat in the game, even though she didn’t have a hit,” Stuedeman said. “I just knew we had to find a way to get her to the plate. I thought if we can get her to the plate, we can end this game. When KK hits the ball in the gap, all I kept seeing were numbers (of the Kentucky outfielders).
“It was like, ‘We got this thing now.’ Fans don’t realize how fast Jessica Cooley is. She finishes in the top five of all our races. People really haven’t seen her unleash it. She unleashed it there.”
Smith ripped a 1-1 pitch to the outfield wall to cap MSU’s third come-from-behind win in the series.
“Once I got the walk, I start laughing when I got to first base,” Cooley said. “I knew KK had this. It was just a matter of her getting the pitch she wanted.”
The Bulldogs only had four hits and made two errors. Brittany Gates was MSU’s lone multiple hitter. Stephanie Becker (16-10) allowed three hits and one run (earned) in four innings to earn her third win in the series. Becker threw the first two and the last two innings.
“What a weekend,” Smith said. “We have come a long way as a team. A lot of people didn’t think this was possible when the year started. Still, nobody here is satisfied. We got some more work to do.”
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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