Shining In The Circle – Mississippi State

STARKVILLE – The future is shining brightly for Mississippi State softball as freshman pitchers Josey Marron and Reis Beuerlein continue to dominate in the circle for the Bulldogs.

The talented newcomers have made an outstanding first impression in the Maroon and White, combining to rack up 107 of the team’s 237 strikeouts so far this season.

Even when Marron and Beuerlein faced No. 1 Oklahoma in the Bulldog Invitational, the freshmen were cool, calm and collected in the circle. They did not allow the huge moment to distract them from the task at hand.

Marron recorded four strikeouts in three innings against the Sooners. Beuerlein’s name was called in the fourth inning, and she pitched three scoreless innings. Beuerlein was dialed in and ready to compete for her teammates.

“I was ready to go, and I had a good warmup,” Beuerlein said about facing off against the Sooners. “I wanted to go out there and just practice working on being calm in the circle and talking to my defense. That really kind of kept me dialed in and I was just mixing pitches, moving spots, spinning the ball around and that was able to give me those scoreless innings.”

Beuerlein got her softball career started at Pinnacle High School in Phoenix, Arizona where she succeeded in the circle and in the classroom. Ranked as the No. 25 pitcher nationally, Beuerlein recorded 535 strikeouts and 46 victories during her high school career and was also a member of the National Honor Society for her academic achievements and leadership in her community.

Beuerlein has recorded 36 strikeouts in 29.2 innings pitched through the first 27 games of the season. Her best performance of the season came in Wednesday’s 5-1 victory over Purdue, in which Beuerlein pitched a complete game and set the MSU freshman record for strikeouts in a game by putting away 14 Boilermakers in the outing.

Following the historic performance from Beuerlein, head coach Samantha Ricketts praised the freshman for her work in the circle.

“That was a great game by [Beuerlein],” Ricketts said. “It is important that we got back-to-back quality starts by these pitchers in the midweek games, especially since we need them when the offense has to get going. It was huge to see her in control all game long. She had great command, mixed her pitches and got swings and misses on pretty much all of them. I’m proud…