Ås the events of Super Bulldog Weekend came to a close, the MSU Diamond Dawgs played to the last inning in a hard-fought 3-1 loss Sunday with the No.4 ranked Florida Gators. The win clinched the series for the Gators, with a 2-1 game margin.
Sunday’s defeat gave the Bulldogs back-to-back home losses for the first time this season. With the victory, Florida improved to 26-7 overall and 9-3 in league play. MSU fell to 21-11 and 5-7. The Bulldogs are tied with Ole Miss and Auburn for third place in the Western Division standings. After the game, head coach John Cohen said he hopes his team will move beyond moral victories.
“I know they are disappointed, but they never stopped competing, and I am proud of them for that,” said Cohen. “But competing needs to end at some point in time, and a W needs to step forward.”
In the home half of the ninth inning, Nick Vickerson began the inning with a leadoff single. After a strikeout, Adam Frazier hit a groundball back to the pitcher. A high throw by the Gators’ pitcher allowed both runners to be safe. A Jaron Shepherd single loaded then loaded the bases for the Bulldogs.
In relief, the Gators turned to first baseman Austin Maddox. Maddox got Wes Thigpen to fly to right field and Bradford to pop up to third base in foul territory to turn the Bulldogs away for one final time. The Bulldogs finished with eight hits, with no player gaining more than one. The Gators finished with nine hits; Maddox and Powers each had multiple hits.
“We did a lot of average things wrong,” said Cohen. “We believe in our kids and it is still early in the conference season and we believe they will make those plays for us.”
The first game of the series ended with the Bulldogs upseting the Gators 7-5.
Much of the scoring came in the home half of the first inning, giving the Bulldogs a four-run lead. After gaining this lead, the Bulldogs did not trail for the remainder of the game.
For the Bulldogs in the second inning, Cody Freeman hit his first home run of the year to extend the lead to 5-2.  The Gators answered wih two runs to start off the third inning, courtesy of RBI’s from both Brian Johnson and Daniel Pigott. Jonathan Ogden made the score 6-3 with his second home run of the day.
MSU ended up scoring their last run on a walk of Shepherd in the fifth inning. Florida scored in the sixth inning on a Josh Adams unearned run.
The Bulldogs received three hits from Bradford and multiple hits from Freeman, Jarrod Parks, Johnson and Ogden. The Gators received three hits from Tucker and multiple hits from Adams, Zunino and Johnson.
On Saturday the Gators tied the series with an 18-0 win over the Bulldogs, disappointing the crowd of over 10,000. This was the first time the Bulldogs had lost a home conference game this season. The Bulldogs fell to 21-10 overall and 5-6 in league play, while the Gators improved to 25-7 and 8-3.
Cohen, as expected, said he was disappointed with the loss.
“I’m very disappointed in the way we played,” Cohen said. “We didn’t handle the short turnaround very well.”
After a scoreless first inning, the Gators went on to score eight runs in the top of the second inning, making it tough on the home team. A grand slam by the Gators’ Zunino was enough to cap the inning and leave the Dawgs in a major deficit going into the third inning.
 The Gators would expand the lead with two scores in the third inning and single scores in the fifth and sixth innings. A six-run seventh inning closed the scoring. The Gators finished with 18 hits. Zunino had three hits and five RBIs. Multiple hitters also included Fontana, Adams, Maddox and Pigott. Cody Freeman had three of MSU’s eight hits.
The Bulldogs return to the road for a 6 p.m. start Wednesday night at UAB to resume  a contest suspended earlier this year. The home team Blazers will resume play with a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning. Conference play resumes next weekend with MSU visiting No.18 Arkansas in Fayetteville.