State Softball Closes Out Regular Season Against Florida
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'Dogs, Gators Jockey For SEC Tournament Seeding, MSU To Send Out Seniors On Sunday STARKVILLE, Miss. -- The Mississippi State softball team (31-27, 10-16 SEC) will close out its 2002 regular season schedule this weekend as the Bulldogs suit up to host the visiting Florida Gators (32-30, 12-15) in a three-game series at the Mississippi State Softball Field. The squads will open up their set with a 12 p.m. Saturday afternoon doubleheader and will close out the series on Sunday afternoon in a single game set to begin at 12:30. Sunday's series finale will be preceded by Senior Day festivites as the Maroon and White will pay special tribute to both three-time all-American Kellie Wilkerson and staff ace Kasey Whitehead in a pregame ceremony. State's lone senior manager, Larry Hood, will also be recognized. In addition to the fact that the two squads are separated by a mere 2 1/2 games in the SEC standings, the 'Dogs and Gators are virtual mirror images of each other. Both turn in a near-identical schedule difficulty (MSU: 9-12 vs. Top 25; UF: 10-17 vs. Top 25), with both having their surges and struggles at various points in the campaign. Both will be trying to avoid becoming the SEC's eight seed heading into the first round of the SEC Tournament next Thursday in Chattanooga. To show their similarities, consider this. Florida will ride the SEC's 10th-best hitting ballclub into the weekend to offset the league's eighth-best pitching staff in the Maroon and White. State will counter with the conference's seventh-best hitting ballclub against Florida's ninth-best pitching staff. Both have nearly identical on-basepercentages, opponent batting averages and fielding percentages. The difference will be in the late surge. The Gators, winners in 14 of their last 20, will ride a three-game winning streak into the contest after scoring 35 runs on a .430 batting clip in a three-game sweep of Tennessee in Knoxville. Florida shortstop Jackie Marchetta hit .583 (7-for-12) in the three-game set, scoring eight runs and tallying seven RBIs. On the weekend, Marchetta recorded a 1.250 slugging percentage and a .615 on base percentage, scoring a run every time she reached base. Florida will likely send Amanda Knowles (4-6, 2.59 ERA) to face MSU's Kasey Whitehead (19-12, 2.38) in the opener, with MSU's Melissa Massey (5-12, 2.44) taking on UF's Amanda Moore (3-5, 2.31). Sunday's Senior Day matchup will feature Whitehead against any one of Florida's four-arm pitching staff.