Standing on her rivals’ field after Monday’s loss at Ole Miss, Mississippi State softball coach Samantha Ricketts admitted something wasn’t right.
The Bulldogs were understandably excited to play their first Southeastern Conference series in 22 months when they traveled to Oxford for a three-game set from Saturday through Monday. Action photos cropped up all over players’ Instagram pages, and the Bulldogs yelled loudly from the first-base visitors’ dugout.
But after Mississippi State scored just one run all weekend in a sweep at the hands of its in-state rival, Ricketts said she could tell not everything was back to normal.
“It just seems different,” she said. “I think that’s something we’re going to have to work on.”
If the Bulldogs hope to correct whatever issues derailed their first conference series of the year, they won’t have much room for error. Mississippi State (15-8, 0-3 SEC) welcomes No. 5 Florida (17-2, 2-1) to Nusz Park for a three-game weekend set. Friday’s game begins at 6 p.m., Saturday’s contest begins at 2 p.m., and first pitch Sunday will be at 2 p.m.
The Gators are one of the 10 ranked teams in Tuesday’s NFCA/USA TODAY coaches poll, meaning the SEC contains 40 percent of the top 25 softball programs in the country. Besides Mississippi State, only Texas A&M and Ole Miss are unranked.
That means six of the Bulldogs’ remaining conference opponents are ranked foes, beginning with Florida. It was the Gators whom the Bulldogs faced in their final SEC series of 2019, in which Mississippi State took two of three in Gainesville, Florida. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dawgs’ 2020 season was cut short just one day before they were scheduled to host Kentucky for a three-game set to open the conference slate.
In the lengthy interlude between the shortened 2020 campaign and the start of 2021, Ricketts said her team talked plenty about the “attitude of gratitude” necessary for its eventual return to the field.
“We needed to really be appreciative of the opportunity, and you appreciate the opportunity by giving it your best effort,” she said.
But after a 15-5 start to the season, that effort was conspicuously absent over the weekend against the Rebels. The Bulldogs left runners on base time and time again, let errors turn into runs and were swept right out of the Ole Miss Softball Complex.
“I don’t think we played to our potential,” Ricketts said after Monday’s game. “We’ve got to hit a little better, pitch better, defense — just kind of everything that you need to be working.”
It’s still early in the SEC slate, and Mississippi State certainly has a chance to make amends in its first home SEC series since April 26-28 against Missouri. That won’t be easy against a Gators team that just took two of three games to win a home series with No. 9 Kentucky.
Here are four things to know about Florida:
— The Gators’ collective 1.20 ERA ranks third in the SEC, while Mississippi State’s mark of 3.32 is dead last. Florida’s top two pitchers are Elizabeth Hightower, who has posted an 0.90 ERA in 54.1 innings, and Natalie Lugo, who has a 1.62 mark in 39 innings. Katie Chronister has thrown 26.2 innings of 1.31 ERA ball for Florida. By contrast, Mississippi State’s top two pitchers are Annie Willis (2.31 ERA) and Emily Williams (2.75).
— The Bulldogs have outhit the Gators in 2021, but not by much: Mississippi State has an eight-point edge in batting average, a six-point advantage in on-base percentage and a 37-point lead in slugging percentage. Junior third baseman Charla Echols and senior infielder Hannah Adams are Florida’s two leading hitters in 2021 as both boast an average over .400 and an OPS above 1.200. Echols is slugging .804 with a team-high five home runs, while Adams is getting on base at a .534 clip.
— Florida has faced just one ranked opponent in its nonconference schedule to date, playing a home-and-home series with No. 13 Florida State. The Gators took the first game in Gainesville and lost the second in Tallahassee. Florida also won both games of a home series against Louisville, the Gators’ only other Power Five nonconference opponent.
— Mississippi State is 21-38 all time against Florida. Before the Bulldogs’ series win in 2019, the Gators swept the prior two three-game sets between the two schools in 2016 and 2018.
Mississippi State lost 17 straight games to Florida between 2007 and 2013.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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