STARKVILLE – Emily Williams was in control all night as No. 23 Mississippi State cruised to a 5-0 victory at home against Memphis (1-12) on Wednesday. Williams struck out 10 batters over 6.0 innings, the most by a Bulldog pitcher this season.

“It’s good to see [Emily] out there attacking the zone,” head coach Samantha Ricketts said. “She has really had a lot of great outings for us in the last couple of weekends. It was a rougher start to the season for her, but she is really doing a great job of mixing speeds and missing barrels. That is the big part. That’s a team [Memphis] that has a lot of slappers, and they were trying to attack our defense. She didn’t even give them the opportunity. I really like the poise and the confidence to go right at them that we saw from her tonight.”

Williams allowed just three hits in her sixth straight scoreless outing. The senior has now gone 21.0 consecutive innings without allowing a run and has allowed just nine hits in that span.

State (15-5) got run support from the entire lineup as seven batters recorded a hit, and the only two that did not reached base three times each. Chloe Malau’ulu walked twice and was hit by a pitch while Fa Leilua drew three free passes. Malau’ulu scored the game’s first run on a Carter Spexarth double.

Paige Cook and Mia Davidson turned in two-hit nights. Anna Kate Segars and Montana Davidson joined Spexarth with RBIs in the game. Segars hit an RBI double, and Montana Davidson scored Leilua with a single. State’s other two runs came home on an error following a Christian Quinn single.

Williams got her third win of the season, and Aspen Wesley came on for the seventh inning allowing one batter to reach on an error while striking out two.

Quotables

Emily Williams on her performance: 

“I feel like it was good. I tried to get a lot of soft contact and then come right back after giving up any hits.”

Paige Cook on the team’s offense:

“I felt pretty confident and really good. I feel like all of our batters all around did a really great job seeing the ball and hitting their pitches.”

Samantha Ricketts on the start of SEC play on Saturday:

“We’re excited about it. We’ve been waiting over a year to play an SEC series. It was beneficial to play Alabama last week to get a taste or warm up of what that environment is going to be like and then you add in the in-state rivalry. We’re excited and ready to play. There’s some weather we are looking at in Oxford, but we are ready to go.  We’re finally ready to be competing in the conference because of how tough it’s going to be week after week. We’re ready for that.”

  

Quick Hitters

Paige Cook – Posted her fifth multi-hit game of the year.

Mia Davidson – Posted her seventh multi-hit game of the year and extended her hitting streak to a season-long seven games.

Fa Leilua – Drew three walks … Leads the SEC with 19 walks on the year.

Chloe Malau’ulu – Extended her reached-base streak to 25 games with a pair of walks and a hit-by-pitch … Scored the game’s first run and has scored at least once in six of the last seven games … Also stole a base.

Carter Spexarth – Doubled home a run to extend her hitting streak to a career-best six games … Batting .474 (9-for-19) in that span with four extra-base hits and nine RBIs.

Christian Quinn – Beat out an infield single and advanced to third on a wild throw that allowed two runs to score.

Emily Williams – Struck out a season-high 10 batters, the most by a Bulldog in 2021 … Has not allowed a run in 21.0 consecutive innings … Has allowed just nine hits in that span … Improved to 3-0 on the season … Now ninth in the SEC with 45 strikeouts.

Scoring Recap

Bottom 1

Chloe Malau’ulu walked and advanced to second on a single by Mia Davidson. Malau’ulu scored on a Carter Spexarth double to center field.

Memphis 0, Mississippi State 1

 

Bottom 4

Page Cook singled and advanced to second on a throwing error. Madisyn Kennedy walked and was pinch ran for by Aquana Brownlee. Cook and Brownlee both scored on a single from Christian Quinn after the defense threw the ball away into right field.

Memphis 0, Mississippi State 3

 

Bottom 6

After Mia Davidson led off with a single to left field, Brylie St. Clair pinch ran at first. St. Clair advanced to second when Fa Leilua walked. St. Clair scored and Leilua advanced to third on a double to right center from Anna Kate Segars. Leilua later scored on a single to right field by Montana Davidson.

Memphis 0, Mississippi State 5

  

On Deck

The Bulldogs travel to Ole Miss to open SEC play this weekend on March 13-15. All three games will be televised on SEC Network+ with Saturday’s series opener set for 5 p.m. CT.

 

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