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Cowbell Corner

Mississippi State Needed One Swing Because Alyssa Faircloth Gave Ole Miss Nothing

Kiarra Sells homered and Alyssa Faircloth dominated in the circle as Mississippi State beat Ole Miss in Thursday’s rivalry series opener.
Taylor Hodges|
Mississippi State pitcher Alyssa Faircloth celebrates an out a series-opening one win against Ole Miss in Oxford.
Mississippi State pitcher Alyssa Faircloth celebrates an out a series-opening one win against Ole Miss in Oxford. | Mississippi State Athletics

Mississippi State didn’t need much on Thursday night.

One swing from Kiarra Sells was enough. The rest of the evening belonged to Alyssa Faircloth, and once she settled in, the game felt like it was already over.

Faircloth opened the rivalry series by giving Ole Miss almost nothing to work with. The junior left-hander retired the first 13 hitters she faced and needed only 44 pitches to do it.

"I mean, just a phenomenal game by Alyssa," Mississippi State coach Samantha Ricketts said. "She just does what we know she can do, and she looked confident and poised and attacked. She wanted the ball. I just loved the composure out of her, the way she attacked the zone, mixed speeds, kept them off balance, and just really kept the momentum in our dugout the whole game."

Ole Miss wasn’t threatening, wasn’t stringing anything together and wasn’t finding any sort of rhythm. When the Rebels finally reached base, it was on an infield dribbler and a hit-by-pitch. That was the full list.

By the time Sells led off the second inning with a solo shot to left, the tone was set. One run felt like five with the way Faircloth was moving. Mississippi State could have packed up the bats right there and played it out.

Faircloth finished with 14 strikeouts, tying her career high and pushing her to 224 on the season, which now sits third on the program’s single-season list.

She allowed just one ball to leave the infield dirt in fair territory, and even that was a harmless foul out. It was her ninth complete game and second shutout of the year, but more than that, it was the kind of outing that squeezes all the air out of a rivalry crowd.

The Bulldogs didn’t exactly coast offensively, but they didn’t need to.

Xiane Romero stayed hot with her third straight multi-hit game and added a double. Nadia Barbary chipped in two singles and is now four hits shy of becoming the 13th player in program history to reach 200.

Morgan Stiles extended her reached-base streak to seven games with a walk. And the defense behind Faircloth stayed clean again, turning in its sixth straight errorless night.

But the story was the pitcher in the circle.

Mississippi State asked Faircloth to set the tone in Oxford, and she delivered the kind of performance that makes everything else feel simple. One run was enough. It was more than enough.

The series picks back up Friday at 6 p.m. on SECN+.

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Taylor Hodges
TAYLOR HODGES

Award-winning sports editor, writer, columnist, and photographer with 15 years’ experience offering his opinion and insight about the sports world in Mississippi and Texas, but he was taken to Razorback pep rallies at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth before he could walk. Taylor has covered all levels of sports, from small high schools in the Mississippi Delta to NFL games. Follow Taylor on Twitter and Facebook.

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