Despite escaping a rare Mississippi freeze this weekend, the Lady Bulldog softball team found the conditions in sunny San Diego less than accommodating. The team went 1-4 on its Southern California road trip, losing the four games by a total of seven runs.
“Well, we stubbed our toe a little bit,” said head coach Jay Miller. “We played a lot of good opponents, but overall we just didn’t play very well, especially on Saturday. I thought we really played a lot better defensively on Sunday.”
After opening the tournament Friday with a 6-3 win over UC-Santa Barbara, the Dawgs fell victim to host-team San Diego State. MSU committed five errors in the game before eventually falling to the Aztecs 5-3.
Saturday’s games were highlighted by the Bulldogs’ much-anticipated match-up with No. 21 Oklahoma State. State took an early lead on OSU, scoring a run in the first on a Kate Jaspers double.
The Cowgirls rallied with two runs in the second and a run in the third, but the Bulldogs offense was not done. The Lady Dawgs scored again in the fourth, cutting the lead to one, but never could knock in the tying run in. MSU left a season-high 10 runners on base, including five in scoring position.
“We had runners in scoring position on a couple of occasions,” Miller said. “And if we get a hit (in one of those situations), it’s a whole new ballgame.”
The Bulldogs continued their sporadic hitting, stranding 10 again in a 5-2 loss to UC-Santa Barbara later that day. They then finished out the tournament with a single game on Sunday-a 2-1 nail-biting loss to San Diego State in extra innings. The Aztecs scored in the eighth inning on a sacrifice bunt. The play went to first base, but a collision allowed Erin Mahoney to score from second.
In the bottom of the eighth the Bulldogs were retired in order to end the game.
Overall, Miller saw the tournament as a good experience for his young Bulldog squad.
“These are the type of games that will get us ready for SEC play. We’ve still got a lot of young players on this team, so we’ll use this as a learning experience and try to get better as the season progresses,” Miller said. “Obviously you would rather not lose, but we will learn from it and move on from there.”
The Bulldogs will return to the field this Friday when they host the Bulldog Classic.