The Mississippi State Bulldogs bounced back from a disappointing series last weekend and swept the three-team round-robin tournament held in Starkville.
The Bulldogs began with a 10-7 win on Friday night over Southeast Missouri State in dramatic fashion. MSU opened up an early 3-0 lead before the Red Hawks of Southeast Missouri answered with four runs to take a 4-3 lead after three innings of play. The Bulldogs grabbed three runs the ensuing inning, highlighted by a Cody Freeman two-run home run to put his team up 6-4. Freeman finished the game 3-for-5 at the plate, including his first home run of the year.
“Before the game everybody was excited to play because we haven’t played in a week,” Freeman said. “I think everybody was excited to get out there.”
SEMO would tie the game before taking over 7-6 in the eighth inning and sending the Bulldogs down to their final outs. Nick Vickerson led off the ninth inning with a single. Two outs later, Jaron Shepherd proved clutch with a single which scored Vickerson from first due to a throwing error.
With the run, the Dawgs sent the game into extra innings setting up Connor Powers to be the hero. Luke Adkins and Jonathan Ogden earned back-to-back walks to lead off the bottom of the tenth, bringing up Powers. Powers then connected with a no-doubt three-run walk-off home run to give State the 10-7 win. This was his second walk-off on the year; his first coming on Feb. 23, when Adkins and Powers hit back-to-back homers to defeat UAB 6-5. Greg Houston pitched the final 2.1 innings to earn the win over the Red Hawks.
Head coach John Cohen said he was pleased with the win but still wishes to see more from his team.
“We did so many things wrong tonight and still found a way to win,” he said. “We aren’t doing things in the game that we are doing in practice. We aren’t firing on all cylinders yet, so we need to improve.”
Mississippi State won a double header on Saturday thanks to the arms of freshmen hurlers by defeating Michigan State 7-4, and Southeast Missouri State 3-2.
In the opening game, rookie pitcher Kendall Graveman threw 5.2 solid innings of relief to earn the win while freshman Ben Bracewell struck out the side in the ninth inning to register MSU’s first save of the season. Tied 4-4 after four innings of play, freshman Sam Frost scored the go-ahead run before the Bulldogs added two more insurance runs in the eighth inning to pull out a 7-4 win over the Spartans of Michigan State.
The second game on Saturday was won by the arm of freshman Chris Stratton who allowed two runs and struck out nine en route to a 3-2 win over SEMO.
In the second-longest outing by a Bulldog this season, Stratton held SEMO scoreless in the first seven innings. He was pulled after giving up back-to-back singles in the eighth, and both runners scored on a double from the next Red Hawk batter given up by Stratton’s replacement, Devin Jones. Jones worked out of the jam and left two runners stranded in the ninth inning to earn the second save of the day.
Jaron Shepherd produced from the plate including a two-run single in the third inning to give the Dawgs a 2-0 lead. Ryan Collins singled in the next inning and eventually scored to increase the lead.
Cohen said he was pleased with Shepherd’s performance as he went 4-for-6 with three RBIs and three runs scored in both games.
“It was a pretty good day and I have to thank God for letting me have a good day,” Shepherd said. “I was trying this little Ichiro thing that me and Coach Cohen have been working on. Today it kinda turned out pretty good.”
Shepherd said he also had a great outing in the outfield throughout the weekend.
“Just put me out there, and I’ll go get any ball that is floating out there,” he said.
Mississippi State completed the tournament sweep on Sunday with a 14-6 win over Michigan State. Connor Powers highlighted the day with a pair of three-run home runs giving him three homers and 15 RBIs on the weekend.
The Spartans opened up an early 3-0 lead in the first, before the Bulldogs scored nine unanswered runs to lead 9-3 after five innings. Both teams traded runs in the sixth before the Dawgs scored four in the seventh inning to put the game out of reach.
Freshman Luke Bole got the start for Mississippi State as he worked six innings giving up seven hits and four runs while striking out two to earn the win. Bole said he was confident going into the game, and relied on the offense for the win.
“The day off helped me out. I threw a good bullpen on Tuesday, came out here today and felt fine,” Bole said. “We can hit the ball, I know that. Somebody told me as long as we can keep them under four runs we can win the game and that’s what happened.”
Cohen praised his defense for what he said was a solid performance, especially the infield.
“I was just really, really happy with the way we defended it today,” Cohen said. “That was the theme for me. We’re going to have to win running offensively and being a great defensive club, and I think we took a huge stride in that direction today.”