No question about it, Mississippi State baseball has a young team this season. Glance throughout the field during a game, and you’ll see six sophomores, one freshman and one senior.
Make it two seniors if it’s Sunday and Jeff Lacher is pitching. Make it three if the other team is throwing a lefty and Tyler Scarbrough is batting as the designated hitter.
No matter how you look at it, the only regular upperclassman is shortstop Steve Gendron, and the Bulldogs are lucky to still have him after last year’s Major League draft.
“I was ready to leave school last year when the draft went on,” he said. “I felt coming back here might help me out a little bit, might not.”
A native of Tampa, it’s a wonder Gendron made it to Starkville at all.
After his junior year in high school, he attended a showcase in North Carolina and caught the eye of MSU hitting coach and fellow Floridian Tommy Raffo. Then the phone calls started and an invitation to visit was made.
“I really wanted to go to Florida, being a Florida boy, but after I came here, all that changed,” Gendron said.
“I went home, and the first thing I said is, ‘I’m going to go to school there (MSU).’ That’s what I told my parents. I waited a while to tell Coach Raff, but I knew I was going here after my visit.”
Turns out the school’s baseball tradition was the biggest attraction, and it’s probably the same reason State was able to snatch Lacher from Southern Mississippi.
Lacher, whose family moved to Hattiesburg from Wisconsin when he was one year old, said he never thought about MSU until being recruited.
“I grew up a USM fan back home,” he said. “Everything I went to was black and gold.
“I was going to play baseball at USM or Meridian. Then I started getting recruited by Mississippi State. I figured Mississippi State was my best chance to go to Omaha-to the College World Series.”
Lacher has made a great deal of progress since coming to State, but he recalled that the first few years were the hardest.
“I redshirted the first year coming in,” he said. “Nobody wants to redshirt as a true freshman because everybody’s good on their high school team, but
then you come in and have to sit out a year. It’s rough.”
It was because of the redshirt year that Lacher’s teammates now call him “the old man.” He’s the team’s only fifth-year senior.
Anticipating this year’s MLB draft, Lacher says he’ll give pro ball a try and see what happens. But with degrees in marketing and management, he has other options. Right now, he just wants to accomplish what he wanted when he signed with MSU-playing in Omaha.
“It would be awesome to win the College World Series, but I’d be happy just to go there,” Lacher said. “If we play two games and lose and go home, I can say I’ve been there and played there.”
Rounding up the senior class is Tyler Scarbrough, who came to MSU by way of Meridian Community College. He’s playing in his second year as a Bulldog.
“Growing up, I’ve always wanted to play at Mississippi State,” he said. “The fans are great. They’re some of the better ones we’ve been around.”
Even though he’s only played at State since last season, Scarbrough says he’s been able to make the most of the time.
“I’ve had a great time,” he said. “I’ve met a bunch of people that, until last year, I didn’t even know, and now some of these guys are going to be in my wedding and stuff like that.”
The three seniors are guaranteed only 13 more games. Twelve of those will decide if they make one last trip to Hoover for the SEC tournament.