No. 21 MSU Softball Travels To Oxford For Three-Game Showdown With Rebels
March 20, 2008 | Softball
STARKVILLE, Miss. - The 21st-ranked Mississippi State softball team returns to Southeastern Conference play this weekend as the Bulldogs travel to Oxford for a three-game series with in-state rival Mississippi beginning Friday.
The Bulldogs and Rebels series kicks off Friday with a doubleheader beginning at 3 p.m. The two teams conclude the SEC Western Division showdown at 1 p.m. Saturday in a game scheduled to be aired live on Fox Sports South.
State enters the weekend with a 23-9 overall record after Tuesday nights 9-0 victory over another in-state foe, Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg. MSU currently stands at 1-5 in conference play. UM, who improved to 15-12 on the season Tuesday night, enters the weekends series at 0-6 in league action.
The two teams will be meeting for the 39th, 40th and 41st times, with MState holding a 23-15 lead in the series. State won three of the four meetings between the two squads last season after the Rebels claimed the previous four contests. Since the two teams started meeting in 1997, they have split the 16 games that have been played in Oxford.
Sophomore Chelsea Bramlett paces MSU at the plate. The Cordova, Tenn., native is hitting an SEC second-best .427 with two doubles, three triples, a home run, 17 RBI and 27 runs scored. Bramlett is a perfect 26-for-26 in stolen bases on the year, the fourth-best consecutive steals mark in school history.
Courtney Bures, a senior, rates second on the team with a .368 average. A native of Haymarket, Va., Bures has a team-high six doubles and is second on the team in home runs (3) and RBI (20). Bures tops the squad in league play, hitting .400 with a double, a home run, two RBI and three runs scored.
Â
