By Parrish Alford
Samantha Ricketts wanted her players to simplify their thinking.
Remove the excess, and focus on the next pitch, the here and now the Mississippi State coach encouraged.
Focus was paramount for a team two games from Oklahoma City but one that had the demons of offensive inconsistency a fresh memory.
Clearing your thoughts seemed like good advice for most players.
Then there was Delainey Everett.
It was hard to focus strictly on the enormity of the softball weekend when a key part of your softball past was missing.
Everett, whose father Brandan – who had also been her coach through much of her pre-college competition — died days before the start of the 2025 season, collected herself, properly channeled her emotions, and pitched her teammates to a massive 6-0 upset. He weighed heavy in her thoughts while she pitched State to the most significant win in program hisotry.
The Bulldogs cranked out 17 runs in two wins against softball royalty as they earned a spot in the Women’s College World Series for the first time.
MSU will face No. 4 seed Texas Tech Thursday morning at 11 Central on ESPN.
Everett threw a complete-game shutout in the Bulldogs’ super regional-clinching 6-0 win, scattering
three hits and three walks on 96 pitches. She struck out three.
The Bulldogs had nine hits, two each from Morgan Stiles, Xiane Romero and Kinley Keller, the latter with three RBIs.
Morgan Bernardini had a two-run home run.
“We had a tough end of the SEC season. It could have been a time that we packed it up and said, ‘Hey, there’s always next year,’ but this team was adamant that we were going to fix this, particularly offensively,” Ricketts, a former Oklahoma player, told reporters as the reality of OKC settled in.
Twelve times in SEC play the Bulldogs were shut out or scored just one run.
At Oklahoma, they earned an 11-9 comeback win in Game 1 then lost 7-1 in Game 2.
Ricketts wanted a return to basics in Game 3.
“We tried to simplify it, a lot more just getting off our best cuts, being more attack mindset, not worrying so much about every pitch we might see or overthinking, really,” she said.
State had a combined 24 hits in its two wins, a stark contrast from much of the SEC regular season.
The rededication offensively and Everett’s higher plane in the circle has made the Bulldogs the talk of postseason.
In Game 1, the Bulldogs rallied after trailing 7-2 entering the sixth inning. Their 15 hits were a season-high, their 11 runs a season-high for an OU opponent. Brookhaven Academy and Copiah-Lincoln Community College alumnus Abby Grace Richardson had a big part in the comeback. The senior had two hits, scored two runs and had one run batted in and started the comeback in the sixth inning with a pinch hit double and stayed in the game and played first base. State scored four runs in the sixth and five in the seventh to win.
“I think just, it’s expected,” said Richardson about making a comeback against Oklahoma. “You’re not going to keep OU scoreless. And, I mean, why not us? Why not this team? Why not us be the team to stop them? I mean, we always fight for each other, and I think we did a good job with that today.”
Oklahoma had not lost a super regional game since 2015 and had been 77-0 in regionals and super regionals when leading by four or more runs since 2000.
State’s offense repeatedly pressured Oklahoma with line drives, timely hitting and aggressive base running.
Then there was Everett, a 5-foot-5 junior left-hander from Oakdale, California. Before Sunday her season had been unkind, a mix of injuries and fewer opportunities leaving her with just 12 innings pitched heading into the super regional. Sunday was her first start of the season. It was also her parents’ wedding anniversary. She thought of them continually.
“Every single inning I was out there I was like, ‘this is for them, this is for him,’” she said. “Daughters and dads have a special connection through softball. He coached me all the way up until I got here. Remembering the big games we won, all the little titles we had just set me up for this moment, and I always know that he’s here.”
Everett didn’t think only about her parents. On successful teams, players think about one another.
“Trusting in the girls is one way to get my mind off it. I lived in that and through that, but the girls are really what gets me through it for sure.”
Everett’s dominance ended streaks of nine-straight WCWS appearances and 399 games without being shut out for the Sooners.
“She was cool and calm and just got us out,” OU coach Patty Gasso said.
“For Delainey to finish it the way she did after really what she’s been through the last two years, it’s a really special moment for her and for this program,” Ricketts said.
Ricketts motivated her players before Game 3 Sunday morning by telling the Bible story of David and Goliath and gave every player a stone and they had them in their pockets as a reminder that they could slay the giant.
Now it’s on to OKC to face Texas Tech, the Big 12 regular season champs who knocked off Florida in Gainesville in the super regional round. The Red Raiders were national runners-up last season.
The emerging Mississippi State offense will face a challenge with Tech pitcher NiJaree Canady, who had a 1.42 earned run average and 215 strikeouts in the regular season. Canady is the highest paid college softball player in the country and has a $1.2 million NIL deal this season.
She posted her 100th career victory against the Gators.
Ricketts believes her players demonstrated their readiness at Oklahoma.
“It was up and down the lineup, people who started in the lineup, people who entered later in the game,” Ricketts said. “That’s really been the MO for this group all year long. They embrace their roles. They’re ready to come out and attack.”
She’s glad to see the offense carrying its weight.
“A lot of times this season, our pitchers have had our backs,” Ricketts said. “I thought this time the offense did a really good job of having the pitchers’ backs. They gave us some great outings.”
Winning a championship will require more than hot bats.
Like the Bulldogs’ offense, Everett is on the rise.
Even when her coach calls for simplicity, she’ll be thinking of her dad.
Said Everett: “He would just be so proud. If he wasn’t so hard on me I wouldn’t be here today.”
Richardson is one of three Mississippians on the roster. East Rankin Academy alumnus and redshirt freshman Abigail Stevens and Hartfield Academy freshman infielder Carson Smith are also on the team.
Richardson has played in 58 games of MSU’s 62 games and has 8 doubles, 5 home runs, 22 runs and 20 RBIs this season.
Stevens has a .304 batting average in 18 games and has three doubles and one home run and also made one appearance as a pitcher this season.
Smith has played in three games and has one hit, a double, in two at bats and has two RBIs and scored a run this season.
Parrish Alford, a two-time Mississippi sports writer of the year, was raised in Denham Springs, Louisiana and graduated from Northeast Louisiana University before the school changed its name to Louisiana-Monroe.
He’s covered college sports in Mississippi since 1989, spending time as a beat writer for multiple seasons at each of the state’s Division I schools.
He’s most known for his work as a beat writer and columnist for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, where he spent 30 years.
He is the author of “Habitual Deadline – sports stories of three-plus decades from the guy who came and stayed.”
A Christian, husband, father and grandfather, he is currently the editor of American Family News (AFN.net), a division of American Family Association.
