Bulldog Softball Faces Hawai'i On Friday To Open NCAA Tournament Play
May 15, 2008 | Softball
STARKVILLE, Miss. ? The 25th-ranked Mississippi State softball team opens action in the 2008 NCAA Division I Softball Championship Friday, taking on Hawai'i at 6:30 p.m. CST in the Tempe, Ariz. Regional.
State enters the tournament with a 40-20 mark and moved back into the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 Poll this week. The Rainbow Wahine sits at No. 23 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25 and heads to Arizona State with a 38-19 record on the year.
The two teams have met just once prior to Friday, and that came last February when UH claimed a 3-2 win over the Bulldogs on a walk-off, two-run home run at the UNLV Desert Classic in Las Vegas.
MSU enters its seventh NCAA appearance and fifth in head coach Jay Miller's six seasons hitting .305 as a team, a mark which matches the highest in school history. First team NFCA All-South Region standouts Chelsea Bramlett and Courtney Bures are both hitting over .400 on the year, marking only the second time ever that two Bulldog starters have hit better than .400 in the same season.
Bramlett's .444 average leads the squad, as she has collected a team- and SEC-best 84 hits while starting 57 of State's 60 games behind the plate. She tops the squad with a sophomore-best 48 runs, and her 44 stolen bases are second in the league, fifth-best nationally and two behind the single-season school record 46 she set last season.
In addition to their first team all-region accolades, both she and Bures were named first team All-SEC last week. Bures, who topped the team with a .453 average in league play, heads into her final postseason hitting a career-best .403 with a team-leading 14 doubles and 42 RBI. The school's career RBI leader with 189 has also added two triples, five home runs and 39 runs.
The Bulldogs will look to freshman Misty Flesher and junior Kelsey Nurnberg to stifle a potent Rainbow Wahine offense that returns mostly intact following the program's first NCAA Super Regional berth last season.
Flesher enters the game with a team-best and MSU freshman second-best 19 wins. The Lone Grove, Okla., native had her streak of six straight decisions snapped last weekend against Alabama in the SEC Tournament.
Flesher, who entered the bottom of the seventh of that game with a no-hitter, has tallied a team-best 109 strikeouts, second-most ever by a freshman and 35 walks over 162 and two-thirds innings. She has allowed 47 runs, 41 earned, for a team-low 1.76 ERA this year.
Nurnberg has compiled 17 wins for State this season and holds a 2.09 ERA with 97 strikeouts over a team-leading 171 innings.
State will likely see a familiar face in the circle in Kate Robinson. The team leader at the plate and in the circle for UH this season, Robinson picked up the victory in last season's win over the Bulldogs. A .384 batter, Robinson has belted a team-leading 19 home runs and driven in 51 runs for a squad that is hitting .290 with 41 RBI and 249 runs. In the circle, she has compiled a 17-8 record and 1.84 ERA while striking out 136 and walking 34 over 171 innings. Courtney Baughman has tallied 14 victories while totaling a 2.04 ERA in 126 and two-thirds innings.
