No. 18 Mississippi State drops final SEC series, 10th seed for conference tourney
It was a difficult end to the regular season for Mississippi State softball. After taking Game One in Oxford on Thursday, the 18th-ranked Bulldogs dropped the final two games of the series against rivals Ole Miss.
The Bulldogs (37-17, 9-15 SEC) finished their conference slate under .500 for the first time since 2023. It was a difficult slate against ranked opposition through all but one series, the finale in Oxford. With the defeat, the team is locked in as the No. 10 SEC seed and will face No. 15 seed Kentucky in the conference tournament in Lexington on Tuesday.
The weekend at Ole Miss began with a 1-0 shutout win behind the arm of ace pitcher Alyssa Faircloth, who recorded 14 strikeouts with just one hit and one walk. The Rebels bounced back with a 3-2 win on Friday and then walked it off in a 3-0 win on Saturday to take the series.
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Faircloth tossed 6.1 innings in Game Three and took her weekend strikeout tally to 21, but didn’t get the boost from the offense needed to take a lead into the seventh inning. Kinley Keller, Des Rivera and Paige Ernstes each had hits for the Bulldogs, but the team struggled to advance runners or string hits together.
The first round of the SEC Tournament begins on Tuesday. The Bulldogs face the Wildcats at approximately 3 p.m., or 35 minutes after the conclusion of the first game earlier in the day. The game will air on SEC Network.
