After cracking the national rankings by becoming the 24th best team in the nation, the Diamond Dogs could not keep up their winning ways as they dropped all three games in a series at Georgia. State fell 4-1, 4-3 and 4-1 and consequently fell out of the polls.
Over the weekend, State pitchers Devin Jones fell to 2-4, Chris Stratton moved to 4-2 and Nick Routt picked up his first loss of the year. In the opening game, State batters struck out 10 times, doubling their hits as they only had five. The strikeout totals decreased and the number of hits increased the next two games, but the Dawgs could not come up with key road wins. Senior infielder Jarrod Parks noted the hitting struggles for the Bulldogs.
“The bottom line is we have to do a better job of putting the ball in play,” Parks said. “We pitched well enough to win all three games this weekend. However, it seemed like they were catching some breaks with some balls falling in for hits, and we weren’t.”
MSU did manage to bounce back from the hard weekend and defeat No.14 Southern Miss this Tuesday in a close game. The Bulldogs got down 2-4 but rallied back to beat the Golden Eagles 5-4.
State opened up the game with two runs in the first on a Southern Miss error and a double by C.T. Bradford. The lead did not last long as pitchers Andrew Busby and Kendall Graveman could not keep the Golden Eagles off the bases. Through 1.2 innings they gave up a combined four earned runs, giving the lead back to Southern Miss.
It was not until the sixth inning State got back on the scoreboard with a sacrifice fly by Adam Frazier. A bases-loaded walk to Adam Frazier in the seventh tied the game for the Bulldogs, and a groundout by Bradford put them on top for good.
Luis Pollorena moved to 3-0 on the season with an outstanding outing in relief. He pitched 5.2 innings, allowing only one hit and one hit batsman. Pollorena got the final out in the four-run second by the Golden Eagles and said the guys just asked him to get out of the inning so that they could go hit.
“My job was to come in and throw strikes,” Pollorena said. “When I was in the outfield shagging fly balls during batting practice, I could tell the ball was not carrying out, so I knew I could just throw strikes and let the defense play behind me.”
The sophomore pitcher did just that as 46 of his 64 pitches were strikes. At one point, Pollorena sat down 13 straight Golden Eagles. Coach John Cohen said Pollorena is one of the best athletes on the team and the team responds very well to him.
“The minute he stepped into our program, he was a leader, and he wanted to win,” Cohen said. “He wanted to be a part of something special, and that’s what drew us to him.”
The Bulldogs will need more of this dominant pitching from Pollorena and the rest of the staff as they host the No.4 Florida Gators for Super Bulldog Weekend in a pivotal SEC series.
Florida is currently 21-6 and has lost only two SEC games, both against South Carolina. Florida did suffer an upset earlier in the week to the University of Central Florida, falling 3-4.
The Gators have a team era of 2.33 and a team batting average of .311, having already hit 21 homeruns and knocked across 190 runs. Cohen said his team will have to execute better this weekend than they have been lately.
“They [Florida] just don’t give you anything; they don’t make mistakes defensively, and they don’t walk people,” Cohen said. “Their hitting is timely, plus they can score a bunch of runs, also. They’re a very complete club and a club that can contend for a national championship right now.”
The Bulldogs open the series against the Gators tonight at 6:30 at Dudy Noble Field. The final two games will be played at noon on Saturday and noon on Sunday.