After scoring double digit runs just once in the first 11 games of the 2012 season, the offense for the Mississippi State baseball team awoke in a big way Sunday in MSU’s weekend finale against the Lipscomb Bison.
Before taking on Penn State for the first time in the history of the MSU baseball program, the Bulldogs played host to both Lipscomb and Big East foe Connecticut at Dudy Noble Field. After sweeping a two-game series with the Huskies by a combined score of 8-5 and topping Lipscomb 6-4 in the first of two games, the much-awaited offense that State fans had been hoping to see all season finally appeared for the Bulldogs, who racked up 16 runs on 19 hits in a 16-6 thrashing of the Bison on Sunday, which pleased head coach John Cohen.
“There’s a lot of stories for the day,” Cohen said. “What you want is to have a nice recipe of guys who can run and guys who can hit it out of the park.”
With the beginning of conference play less than two weeks away, the Bulldogs will first turn their attention to the Penn State Nittany Lions, a Big 10 opponent who has struggled out of the gate of the 2012 season with a mediocre 2-6 record. While PSU has not exactly had the best of starts, Cohen said it will not take away from the magnitude of State’s upcoming clash with the Nittany Lions.
“When we had this opportunity to play Penn State, we couldn’t pass it up,” Cohen said. “They have a great athletic department, a great tradition, and they have a lot of athletes on their ball club. It’s going to be a tremendous challenge for us.”
MSU will play the Nittany Lions on Tuesday and Wednesday in a two-game series that marks the beginning of the final leg of MSU’s 18-game game home stand to begin the regular season.
The offensive explosion for MSU on Sunday was not centered on just one or two players, either. Six of the nine Bulldog starters had multiple hits, and the season-high 16 runs were plated by six different MSU players.
Lipscomb scored all six of its runs in the first four innings and held a 6-5 lead before State erupted for eight runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Among those who contributed to the eight-run burst for MSU, who batted around in the frame, sophomore third-baseman Darryl Norris, sophomore outfielder Hunter Renfroe and freshman first-baseman Wes Rea all had extra-base hits. Rea had two hits in the game, and Norris finished 3-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored.
“It was good to get the bats going today and take some pressure off the pitchers,” Norris said. “We knew we had talent at the plate, and we had some things not go our way in the past few games, but it started coming together today.”
Along with the nice performances of Norris and Rea, sophomore outfielder C.T. Bradford had a career day at the plate Sunday, compiling four hits and plating six runs, two of which came from his first home run of the season. Before Sunday, Bradford had batted just .244 on the season, but admitted after the game that he knew it was only a matter of time until his offense returned to form.
“I’m not going to press at all,” Bradford said. “I’ve been through this before. I knew it was going to come together.”
While Sunday’s offensive onslaught may be an exception for what many believe is a mediocre MSU offense, Bradford said he and his teammates know what the Bulldogs are capable of at the plate.
“There’s potential for us to throw shutouts and potential to score a lot of runs,” Bradford said. “Even though we’re young, we really have some good, mature hitters.”
With a record of 10-2, MSU is one game better than the 9-3 record it had this time last season.