Idle Bulldogs Clinch SEC Tournament Berth
May 25, 2016 | Softball
STARKVILLE, Miss. ?€" Having enjoyed its first off weekend of the 2005 campaign, the Mississippi State softball team got some even better news Sunday afternoon as the Bulldogs clinched their eighth consecutive SEC Tournament berth on the shoulders of a three-game Tennessee sweep of Ole Miss in Oxford.
With the result, the field is now set for the 2005 SEC Tournament to be held in Gainesville, Fla., May 12-15. SEC regular season champion Georgia is the lone team to have clinched a specific seeding, however, as teams will jockey for position in the final week of the 2005 regular season. Ole Miss, Arkansas and Kentucky have been mathematically eliminated in regards to qualifying for the league's postseason gala.
This week's series match-ups (with current SEC placement in parentheses) include Arkansas (10th) at Alabama (2nd), Tennessee (4th) at LSU (6th) and Florida (5th) at Kentucky (11th).
Mississippi State (31-25, 11-16 SEC), which currently sits in seventh place overall in the league standings, will close out their 2005 regular season campaign this weekend when the Bulldogs travel to face eighth place South Carolina (26-25-1, 9-15) in a three-game series. The two will open up their series on Saturday with a 1 p.m. EDT doubleheader, before closing out the set on Sunday at 1 p.m.
State trails sixth place LSU by a single game, but can climb one place in the tournament seedings with a series victory at South Carolina as well as some help from Tennessee which travels to face the Tigers in Baton Rouge, La., on Saturday and Sunday. The Bulldogs own the tiebreaker with LSU by virtue of a series victory over the Purple and Gold March 30-31 in Starkville.
IF THE SEC TOURNAMENT STARTED TODAY
Round 1 Match-Ups (All Times Eastern)
Game 1 - #3 Auburn vs. #6 LSU, Noon
Game 2 - #2 Alabama vs. #7 Mississippi State, 2:30 p.m.
Game 3 - #4 Tennessee vs. #5 Florida, 5 p.m.
Game 4 - #1 Georgia vs. #8 South Carolina, 7:30 p.m.
