Beuerlein sets freshman mark in MSU victory

There is not much that has shaken Reis Beuerlein's confidence so far this season.

The freshman pitcher for the Mississippi State softball team has met pretty much every challenge during her first year in the collegiate circle.

Beuerlein was especially sharp on Wednesday as she hurled a complete game twohitter and achieved a freshman school record 14 strikeouts as the Bulldogs defeated the Purdue Boilermakers 5-1 at Nusz Park.

With her record performance, Beuerlein became the second MSU freshman pitcher to tie or break the mark this year as Josey Marron struck out 13 against Furman on February 26.

“Great game by Reis,” State head coach Samantha Ricketts said. “I think she gave us backto-back quality starts by these pitchers in midweek games when we need them to try and get the offense going. It was good to see her in control all game long, have great command, mixed all of her pitches and got swings and misses on pretty much all of them. Proud of her and her effort. It helps to make sure the bullpen is deep going into conference play this weekend.”

Beuerlein pitched four shutout innings before giving Purdue the only run it got for the game on a fifth inning solo home run by Olivia Mcfadden.

Even the long ball was not enough to rattle Beuerlein as she went right back to work and put up two more shutout innings in the sixth and seventh. It appeared that Beuerlein still had her stuff working well in the seventh with two of the three final outs being strikeouts.

“I was ready to go, locked in

and focused,” Beuerlein said. “I was confident in my stuff today. I knew I had my defense behind me and the offense was going to pick me up when they figured their pitchers out. I was just rolling, hitting spots and I knew how to attack their swings. (MSU pitching coach) Josh (Johnson) had a really good plan and we just went with it. That was kind of the plan for today.”

After being held to one hit by North Dakota State in Tuesday's action, the Bulldogs struggled once again out of the gate offensively against the Boilermakers for three innings on Wednesday.

MSU did not have a hit through three innings against Purdue pitcher Alexa Pinarski, then it finally broke scoring ice in the fourth. Brylie St. Clair had a one-out single, then Chloe Malau'ulu followed that up with a single of her own and Paige Cook walked to load the bases. Aquana Brownlee was issued another walk for an RBI and Riley Hull had an RBI single to score Malau'ulu.

“(Tuesday's) game opened up a lot of eyes and we had some soul-searching to do,” Malau'ulu said. “We figured it out (Wednesday) even though we had a little slow start.”

Malau'ulu provided some insurance in the fifth inning when she clubbed a two-run home run. St. Clair came home after getting her second single of the game.

Even though the Bulldogs only had five hits total, Ricketts was encouraged by the approach to the game on Wednesday.

“I thought their demeanor was a lot better,” Ricketts said. “We were loose, were confident, played our game and didn't put too much pressure on ourselves in at-bats.”

MSU (19-8) now enters the Southeastern Conference portion of their schedule as it hosts South Carolina Friday, Saturday and Sunday.