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01 April 2007: UCLA's Krista Colburn (left) watches from the batters box as Arizona's Taryne Mowatt during the Arizona Wildacats 11-2 win over the UCLA Bruins at Easton Field on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles, CA. (Photo by Chris Williams/Icon SMI/Icon Sport Media via Getty Images)
“Fire the pitching coach!”
That’s been a popular refrain among many Arizona softball fans for years. Just three years ago, that part of the fan base got its demands when former Wildcat ace Taryne Mowatt-McKinney took the fall for Arizona missing the 2023 postseason. Now, she’s headed to Oklahoma City to coach Mississippi State in the Women’s College World Series.
It was an improbable run for MSU and the last pitcher to lead Arizona to a national title. The Bulldogs had to fly across the country to the Eugene Regional then get through the most dominant program in the 21st century by travelling to Norman to take on the Oklahoma Sooners in super regionals. They battled through to make it to OKC for the first time in program history.
The final game came down to the arms that Mowatt-McKinney oversees. The Bulldogs took the super regional by shutting out a team that put 21 runs up on Arizona in a game this February and 32 in a three-game series. MSU won the super regional by the score of 6-0 in the rubber match.
The Bulldogs turned to Delainey Everett in the decider. She had just 13.1 innings pitched coming into the game. She went 7.0 innings against the Sooners. She dropped her ERA to 0.69 in the process.
Mississippi State relied on its pitching throughout the season. Mowatt-McKinney leaned on transfers Peja Goold and Alyssa Faircloth for most of the year. Goold joined this year from Chattanooga. Faircloth joined last year from Troy. They were just two of five Bulldog pitchers who had a BAA of .200 or lower and an ERA of 2.47 or lower.
Both Faircloth and Goold averaged over a strikeout per inning while pitching over 150 innings. Goold had 1.2 per inning in 150.1 IP. Faircloth had 1.5 per inning in 175.2 IP.
According to Pitchcom, Mississippi State’s pitching staff ranked third in xFIP (2.06), third in K% (31.6 percent), fifth in opponents’ slugging percentage (.299), fifth in K:BB (3.76), sixth in opponents’ on-base percentage (.269), sixth in WHIP (1.00), eighth in ERA (2.39), and 11th in LOB% (76.5 percent).
Mowatt-McKinney has put two pitchers in the AUSL in the league’s first two seasons, as well as working with former Arizona pitcher and current AUSL pro Devyn Netz for the first three years of her college career.
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