No. 16 Kentucky Drops Series to Mississippi State

STARKVILLE, Miss. – For the first time in over five years, the No. 16 Kentucky softball team lost a series to Mississippi State, dropping game two on Saturday afternoon, 5-3 at Nusz Park in Starkville, Mississippi. 

The Wildcats allowed the Bulldogs to take a 4-0 lead with runs in the first, third and two in the fifth inning before a late rally pushed UK two runs closer in the sixth, but were unable to come up with the key hits to push the key runs across. 

With the loss, Kentucky has lost two in a row, and falls to 34-16 overall and is now a game under in Southeastern Conference play at 11-12. Mississippi State improves to 36-18 overall on the season now and is 10-13 in SEC play. 

Game three of the series will be on Sunday afternoon in both team’s regular season finale at 2 p.m. ET from Nusz Park in Starkville. The game will be shown exclusively on the SEC Network+, ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app. 

Two. Brooklin Hinz has now hit home runs in back-to-back games. Her homer in the sixth to left field was the fourth of the season. 

The key play in the game was back-to-back RBI hits from Reggie Harrison and Morgan Bell to  score the third and fourth MSU runs in the bottom of the fifth innings. 

Brooklin Hinz and Katie Reed were the key players for the Wildcats, scoring the only two Kentucky runs in the game.

Mississippi State scored first for the second game in a row, getting a lead-off single and then an RBI double from Caroline Seitz in the top of the first. MSU 1, UK 0

In the bottom of the third, the Bulldogs got a first-pitch home run from Seitz to right center. MSU 2, UK 0

MSU would add two more in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI double from Reggie Harrison and an RBI single up the middle from Morgan Bell. Both of the hits came with two outs. MSU 4, UK 0

Brooklin Hinz and Katie Reed both hit solo home runs in the top of the sixth inning to score the only two runs of the game for the Wildcat offense. MSU 4, UK 2

The Bulldogs loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the sixth inning, and scored their fifth run on a sacrifice fly to center by Seitz to score Katie Ann Bailey, who was hit by Shannon Smith to lead off the inning. MSU 5, UK 2

In the top of the seventh, Kentucky got a run on an RBI infield single from Katie Reed to score Bailey Vick. FINAL – Mississippi State 5, No. 16 Kentucky 3

For the latest on the Kentucky softball team, follow @UKSoftball on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.