The Mississippi State baseball team brought its brooms to Super Bulldog Weekend as the Bulldogs defeated Tennessee three straight games.
State has an overall record of 9-3 against the Volunteers under head coach John Cohen and has defeated them in eight straight games.
With the series win, MSU got itself in position to make a push for the SEC Tournament, heading down the home stretch with only four conference series remaining. State improved its overall record to 24-16 and 8-10 in the conference. Sophomore shortstop Adam Frazier, who leads the team with a .343 batting average, went 3-10 with three RBIs in the series. Frazier said the sweep is exactly what this team needed, considering the team was swept in its last conference series against No. 7 South Carolina.
“It’s huge, especially getting swept last week. We get a sweep this week, and we’re back in it,” he said. “We just have to keep it rolling.”
Outstanding pitching, defense and opportunistic hitting were instrumental in MSU’s success throughout the series. The Bulldogs pitching staff only allowed four runs, the defense only committed one error and the offense scored 12 runs on 20 hits.
The weekend started with a great outing on Thursday by junior pitcher Chris Stratton, who held the Vol hitters to only four hits, striking out 10 and allowing one run to come across the plate in nine innings of work. Senior pitcher Caleb Reed picked up his first win of the season after pitching two shut-out innings, followed by junior catcher Mitch Slauter’s walk-off sacrifice-fly that scored pinch runner Luis Pollorena from third in the bottom of the 11th- inning to win the opening game of the series 2-1.
The Bulldogs went on to win the second game of the series 7-1 Friday after another impressive outing by  starting pitcher Kendall Graveman, who was named SEC Pitcher of the Week. Graveman pitched his second complete game, improving his record to 3-2. He threw nine innings of three-hit baseball and recorded eight strikeouts. Offensively, State was led by the opportunistic hitting of Frazier and freshman Wes Rea. They both went 2-3 with three RBIs. State took a 2-0 lead in the series, needing only three pitchers to do so. 
However, the Bulldog bullpen was busy Saturday, as they used seven pitchers in a 14-inning 3-2 win, obtaining the second extra inning win of the series to solidify the sweep. Sophomore Evan Mitchell started in only his second game of the year and went 3 1/3 innings of work, allowing one run on four hits. He exited the game with State down 1-0, but six members of the bullpen pitched 10 2/3 innings of seven hit baseball and only allowed one more run to come across the plate. Pollorena, who scoredthe winning run on Thursday, pitched the final three innings of the game and allowed only one hit to get his second win of the season. Pollorena said MSU’s bullpen is one of the best in the country.
“We feel like our bullpen can compete with any other bullpen in the country,” he said. “We just know we can compete with anybody, and whoever we throw out there can win.”
The unsung hero of game three was freshman Matthew Britton, who entered the game with a .110 batting average but went 3-5 with two runs batted in and scored the go-ahead run in the bottom half of the 14th-inning following a wild pitch. Cohen said although Britton may be struggling offensively, the team still has confidence in his abilities.
“We have a lot of confidence in Matthew (Britton). We think he’s going to be a great player,” he said. “The league’s knocked him around a little bit, and he’s just got to recover from that offensively.”
The Bulldogs will travel to Trustmark Park in Pearl, Miss., today to play Southern Mississippi at 6:30 p.m. Following its second trip to Pearl, MSU will play at home against rival Ole Miss this weekend. Game times are 7 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday. The first two games will be televised by Comcast Sports Southeast.