Bulldogs avoid letdown to top Tigers at home

Tuesday night’s matchup with Memphis in softball action presented a perfect opportunity for the No. 19 Mississippi State Bulldogs to have a letdown.

Fresh off of a series win on the road at rival Ole Miss, MSU is set to host No. 5 Florida starting Friday for Super Bulldog Weekend.

Memphis (30-15) was just the team to try and spoil things, but State didn’t let it happen.

Some timely hits and a combination of three pitchers tossing a gem led to a 3-1 victory that kept the Bulldogs in the hunt for big things in 2018.

“We’ve talked a lot about what the midweek and non-conference games mean for seeding in postseason,” MSU head coach Vann Stuedeman said. “I feel like they know that the midweeks are more important if not as important as the conference games. We were disappointed in our performance (Monday night against Ole Miss) and wanted to knock that dust off.”

The Bulldogs got momentum relatively early in the game with some clutch hitting in the second inning. They strung together a couple of two-out singles from Kat Moore and Carter Spexarth and Carmen Carter brought both of them home with a double off of the left field wall. It was 2-0 and MSU wouldn’t lose that lead.

“It felt good to do that for our team,” Carter said. “We like to play the game within ourselves so that every game is the same and it makes it easier to continue to focus.”

Memphis threatened in the next inning by putting two in scoring position with one out but Emily Williams got State out of the jam.

The Bulldogs made the Tigers pay for not getting anything on the board in the bottom of the third. Emily Heimberger led off the inning with a double and Sarai Niu singled her home with one out to push the lead to 3-0.

The visitors were not going to go down without a fight and made some noise in the fifth. With one out, Memphis got an infield single and a bunt single that put two runners on.