After dropping Sunday’s game three, 8-0,  in Starkville to the No. 12 ranked University of Tennessee Volunteers, the softball Bulldogs find themselves facing an uphill climb to get back into contention in the Southeastern Conference.
The loss gave the Volunteers the weekend series sweep and  Mississippi State has now lost six conference games in a row after starting the season with a 3-4 mark in the SEC. The Bulldogs are currently near the bottom of the Western Division with an overall record of 18-15 and a 3-10 record in conference play. 
Sunday was the second game of the series that the Bulldogs were defeated by the eight-run rule and the Volunteer bats were too much for State pitching to handle, head coach Vann Stuedeman said.
“It was a rough day three and we were playing a great Tennessee team and they were extremely offensive,” she said.
Mississippi State tried to counter the offensive production of Tennessee by starting junior left-handed pitcher Stephanie Becker who has been the ace and most consistent pitcher to this point. Even Becker had no answer for the hot bats of Tennessee. Becker dropped two decisions against the Volunteers in three days and now has an overall record of 10-7. However, Becker did manage to reach a total of 100 strikeouts recorded for the season with her play over the weekend.  Becker had an earned run average of 2.36 entering the game on Sunday and only allowed four earned of the six charged to her. This was an improvement after allowing seven earned runs on Friday. The team committed a total of three errors on Sunday and a total of six over the entire weekend. Stuedeman said Becker’s performance was an improvement, but the defense behind her needs to be able to eliminate errors.  
“I thought Becker came out today and was a whole lot better than Friday night and was able to work herself out of some jams,” she said. “Early in the game, unfortunately, we were not able to make a play or two for her for the first four runs.”
The Bulldogs also struggled to generate offense not only on Sunday but for the entire weekend. State was outscored by the Volunteers 26-3 in the series and was out-hit 28-18. The two bright spots for the Bulldogs on Sunday were sophomore Sam Lenahan and senior Brittany Bell who both went two for two and accounted for four of the five total hits in the loss. The Bulldogs had their opportunities to drive in runs throughout the weekend, but Lenahan said that the team needs to have timelier hitting.
“We need more timely hitting, we’re having quality at-bats,” she said. “We just need to have those quality at-bats more often.”
The Bulldogs will  travel to Mississippi Valley State on Wednesday and then have the No. 1 team in the nation, the University of Alabama, coming into town for a three-game series starting on Friday at 7 p.m. Lenahan said  the game against Mississippi Valley State, a team which State beat earlier this year 3-2, is going to be important for the team to win in order to get back on the winning track before the series with the Crimson Tide.
“It is going to be big,” she said. “We have to keep going out there fighting, go out and score runs early and get that win to give us momentum going into the Alabama series.”