State Drops Tightly-Contested Series To No. 10 Florida

Saturday, March 30

Starkville

12:00 PM

Mississippi State

25-9, 6-6

#10 Florida

31-5, 7-2

Florida

Mississippi State

State Drops Tightly-Contested Series To No. 10 Florida

March 30, 2024 | Softball

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By: Brian Ogden, Associate Director/Communications

STARKVILLE – A three-run rally in the top of the seventh saw a series win slip away from No. 17/17 Mississippi State on Saturday. No. 10/9 Florida rallied back for a 7-6 victory to clinch a series that saw games decided by one run twice.

The Bulldogs (25-9, 6-6 SEC) opened the scoring in the second inning on a Salen Hawkins' single and Sierra Sacco bases-loaded walk. Hawkins added a third run on a sacrifice fly to score Jaydn Burney in the third. Florida (31-5, 7-2 SEC) hit a two-run homer in the fourth to cut the lead, but State responded with three more runs in the fourth.

Ultimately, MSU left multiple runners on base in the third, fourth and fifth innings.

"Yeah, I mean against a team like that, every run matters," head coach Samantha Ricketts said. "We had a couple of chances to really break it open early, and I thought we let them off the hook. Especially when they're pitching around Madi [Kennedy] most of the game, we need to make sure that we're capitalizing when we have runners in scoring position in the middle of our lineup."

Florida answered with two runs in the fifth before adding three more in the seventh inning. Skylar Wallace tripled to score Kendra Falby, and Jocelyn Erickson hit a game-winning two-run homer.

Quotables

Samantha Ricketts on the performance of State's three freshmen starters…
"They really aren't playing like freshman anymore. They're playing with a lot of experience, and they've been out there from the beginning. It's good to see them grow up before our eyes, because they really are such a vital part of our lineup, what they do both offensively and defensively. Just really quality at bats against some good pitching, some good freshman pitching on the other side. Those were some good battles we can expect to see for a couple years from that group."

Ella Wesolowski on today's game overall…
"Aspen [Wesley] pitched a great game. I mean in the end, we as a team have to have her back too. She's just amazing. When I called time and went out to talk to her, she was like 'I got this,' and we're just telling her that we've got her back too. It's unfortunate how it ended, but this is going to fuel us. The crowd today was absolutely amazing, and that contributed to a lot of it too. We hope to see that for our next home games as well."

Quick Hitters

Spreading the Nusz – MSU saw 1,302 fans fill the park on Saturday, which is the No. 13 crowd in school history … the weekend attendance total was 3,053, which is MSU's largest home crowd for a three-game SEC series since 2018 against then-No. 5/5 Florida (3,140).

Making The Sacrifice – State broke the single-season school record with 18 sacrifice flies this year … MSU is averaging 0.53 per game, which is the highest rate on record.

Freshmen Facing Florida – Kylee Edwards, Ella Wesolowski and Salen Hawkins combined to go 13-for-27 (.481) in the series with eight RBIs.

Paige Cook – Tied the MSU single-season record with her fifth sacrifice fly of the year … now has 11 in her career, which is second in MSU history … added a single.

Kylee Edwards – Delivered her eighth multi-hit game of the season.

Salen Hawkins – Delivered an RBI single to left field … hit her fourth sacrifice fly of the season, which is now tied for third in MSU single-season history ... now has eight multi-RBI games.

Madisyn Kennedy – Walked twice to extend her career-long reached-base streak to 21 games.

Sierra Sacco – Recorded her ninth multi-hit game of the year … drew an RBI walk … went 3-for-4 with a double.

Aspen Wesley – Struck out eight and now has 299 career strikeouts, which is ninth in school history … tossed her sixth complete game of the season and the 12th of her career.

Ella Wesolowski – Recorded her seventh multi-hit game of the year … has multiple hits in three of her last four games ... hit a two-run double to center field.

Scoring Recap

Bottom 2
With one out, Ella Wesolowski singled to left field. She advanced to second on Kylee Edwards single through the left side. With runners on first and second, Salen Hawkins hit a single to left field, scoring Wesolowski and moving Edwards to second. Pinch-hitter Lexi Sosa was hit-by-pitch to load the bases. Sierra Sacco drew a walk to score Edwards.
No. 10 Florida 0, No. 17 Mississippi State 2

Bottom 3
Paige Cook singled to left field, and Jadyn Burney pinch ran. With one out, Wesolowski singled to right, and Burney advanced to second. Edwards singled up the middle to load the bases. Hawkins hit a sacrifice fly to score Burney.
No. 10 Florida 0, No. 17 Mississippi State 3

Top 4
Reagan Walsh walked to start the inning. With one out, Ava Brown hit a two-run home run to left-center field.
No. 10 Florida 2, No. 17 Mississippi State 3

Bottom 4
Sacco singled up the middle. Nadia Barbary followed with a single to left just before Madisyn Kennedy walked to load the bases. Riley Hull pinch ran for Kennedy at first. Cook hit a sacrifice fly to left-center, scoring Sacco. With two outs, Wesolowski doubled over the center fielder, scoring Hull and Barbary.
No. 10 Florida 2, No. 17 Mississippi State 6

Top 5
Kendra Falby singled up the middle. Skylar Wallace doubled off the diving second baseman's glove, pushing Falby to third. Korbe Otis hit a sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Falby. Jocelyn Erickson reached on a fielder's choice to third base, and Wallace beat the throw home.
No. 10 Florida 4, No. 17 Mississippi State 6

Top 7
Falby reached on a throwing error and scored on Wallace's triple down the right field line. With one out, Erickson homered to right field.
No. 10 Florida 7, No. 17 Mississippi State 6

Next Up

The Bulldogs hit the road for a four-game trip next week. State will head to UAB on Wednesday, April 3 for a 5 p.m. CT first pitch. From there, the team heads to Columbia, South Carolina, for a three-game set with the No. 22/RV Gamecocks beginning Friday, April 5.

For more information on the Bulldog softball program, follow on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram by searching "HailStateSB."