Mississippi State didn’t merely win the Bully Bash softball tournament last weekend.The No. 21 Bulldogs (30-11, 4-7 SEC) demolished the competition on the weekend, outscoring their foes by a total of 37-3.
“We set our minds to go out and beat these teams in five innings,” freshman second baseman Ali Bainbridge said. “We wanted to go out and hit the ball hard, and that’s what we did.”
Bainbridge had a solid pair of games Saturday, going 3-for-5 against Mississippi Valley State and then scoring the final run against Georgetown to solidify the win.
MSU topped MVSU 10-1 in its first game Saturday, then defeated Georgetown 8-0. Both of the Saturday games were ended early by the mercy rule.
Sunday saw the Bulldogs defeat Georgetown 7-2, then MVSU 12-0 by another mercy-ruling.
“It was a very successful weekend,” sophomore third baseman Jessie Bailey said. “We got our swings back and got good pitching. It gave us a little bit of a break before we have to bet back into the routine of conference play.”
Bailey earned all-tournament honors after going 5-for-9 with 7 RBIs on the weekend. Bailey’s stat line included four doubles. Bailey said that winning the Bash helped boost the team’s confidence level, as well as her own.
“It helps a lot,” she said. “After getting some good hits, I feel ready to go back into conference play. It got me back into the rhythm of things.”
Freshman pitcher Misty Flesher earned the tournament’s MVP award after upping her record on the season to 12-6 with a pair of victories during the bash.
She had a near-perfect game in the tournament’s finale against MVSU that was broken up in the fifth inning.
“We’ve had good pitching all year,” MSU sixth-year head coach Jay Miller said. “We got that again in the tournament. We also got some kids that have been struggling to get healthy with their averages again. We got some backups, some at-bats and innings, and that’s good.”
The tournament came in the middle of the SEC season for the Bulldogs, who currently sit at three games below .500 in the conference. The team hoped the Bash, which featured teams below MSU’s tier of competition, would come as a breath of fresh air after competing so intensely in conference play.
“The SEC is the toughest conference in the country, RPI-wise and strength-of-schedule-wise,” Miller said. “It’s such a battle, week-in and week-out. It’s good just to have a break.”
Bailey said the team had a special goal for the weekend, other than simply winning games.
“We stayed focused,” Bailey said. “Our goal for the weekend was to score runs in every inning this weekend and not let up when we got ahead.