The Mississippi State Bulldogs outscored the East Tennessee
State Buccaneers 28-5 in a demoralizing three-game series sweep
over the weekend.
State rode the solid pitching of Paul Maholm to a 7-0 win in the
late Friday afternoon. Maholm threw for six strong innings and
recorded eight strikeouts while giving up a mere five hits and one
walk.
After scoring a run in the first inning, the Bulldogs went for
three in the bottom of the second. With runners on the corners,
leftfielder Jon Mungle drove in the inning’s first run with a
double to left-centerfield.
Shortstop Matthew Maniscalco followed with a sacrifice fly that
scored another run. After second baseman Tyler Scarbrough walked to
fill the corners again, he stole second, and Mungle stole home to
give MSU a 4-0 lead.
State added three more in the third to supply the final scoring
of the game. After starting the inning with two strikeouts, five
consecutive MSU players singled to make it 7-0. Mungle’s hit
provided his second and third RBI, and Maniscalco got the second of
his three hits to bring home the last run.
“I like how we got the runs on the board early in the game,”
senior Maniscalco said. “With Paul on the mound, you know he’s
going to throw strikes. You know he’s going to shut it down.”
“I was throwing a lot of inside fastballs,” Maholm said. “That
way, if they hit it, they wouldn’t hit it real hard. Pretty much
everything was working for me today. It’s pretty important whenever
the offense puts up a couple of runs early. You can just go out
there and throw your game and don’t worry about anything.”
MSU right-hander Alan Johnson sent 11 Buccaneers back to the
dugout via strikeout Saturday and composed a no-hitter through
seven innings. The Bulldog offense assembled 10 runs in the
meantime to explode to a 10-1 victory.
Right-fielder Brad Corley paced the team with a 3-for-4 hitting
performance while Maniscalco reached base four times, driving in
two runs with two hits.
Johnson pitched a perfect game for four innings before hitting
an ETSU batter in the fifth. Johnson put another Buccaneer on base
with a bean ball in the top of the seventh but kept his no-hitter
alive by forcing an inning-ending double play. “He’s a
strike-thrower, and if you’re a strike-thrower, you’re going to
have pretty good success,” Polk said of Johnson. “Plus, he’s got
that great breaking ball. He goes out there and just dazzles people
because he’s so effortless.”
Johnson, who struck out the first three Buccaneer batters
swinging, said he didn’t feel like anything special was in the
making after the first inning.
“I usually try to come out strong and try to throw in a little
bit of intimidation,” Johnson said. “I’m happy about the
performance. It stinks that I gave up a hit, but I guess that’s the
way the game is played.”
MSU completed the sweep on Sunday after jumping out to a 6-0
lead in two innings. The Bulldogs scored in six of the eight
innings in which they batted, and six MSU pitchers registered a
combined 15 strikeouts in the 11-4 win.