There is no cure for the road blues like taking two of three from an SEC foe at their own field. For the MSU softball team, that cure came in the form of the Kentucky Wildcats.
With Sunday’s 6-2 victory, the Bulldogs won a series in Lexington for the first time in six years.
The game was knotted at two until the fifth inning when senior second baseman Lindsey Nelson singled to drive in Iyhia McMichael and give the Bulldogs the lead and eventual win. The series win pushes the Bulldogs to 4-11 in league play and 22-17 overall.
Saturday the Bulldogs split the double header with the Wildcats, winning the opening game in an offensive exposition, 8-2. Four different Lady Dawgs crossed the plate for the squad, while Stephanie Comeaux relieved starter Melissa Massey and recorded her seventh win of the season.
The Bulldogs remained hot for the early going of the second contest, coming out of the gates and scoring a run in each of their first two innings. Kentucky rallied, however, and by the fifth inning had tied the game at two.
In the seventh inning Nelson came up with her first of two clutch hits in the series, plating McMichael to give the Dawgs a 3-2 advantage.
Kentucky responded with Amber Janneck’s walk-off two-run home run off Comeaux to crush the Bulldogs’ chances of a sweep and give the Cats a 4-3 victory.
“We essentially gave up four runs on two pitches,” said head coach Jay Miller. “Hopefully we can use this as a learning experience and be able to get more consistent in the future.”
State received a huge day at the plate from senior first baseman Jennifer Waterman. Waterman was 4-8 on the day with two home runs and five RBI’s to pace a Bulldogs lineup that had its best offensive weekend of the SEC season to date.
Miller attributed this offensive burst mainly to the moving of All-American McMichael back to the leadoff spot.
“We were able to get some things going with Iyhia leading off,” Miller said. “We got hits throughout the lineup this weekend and that is always a good thing.”
The team will return to action on Friday and continue its SEC road show with a three game series on the plains of Auburn against the nationally ranked Tigers.
Miller hopes this weekend’s victories will make the Bulldogs’ road woes a thing of the past.
“In our situation right now we needed to win all three games. But when you’re on the road in the SEC, your goal has to always be to win the series, and we did that. Hopefully this will give us a little momentum and we can get back on track,” Miller said.