STARKVILLE — Brent Rooker and Austin Sexton walked to the podium with heads down and somber looks on their faces.
Rooker, wearing a maroon pullover, and Sexton, who was still wearing his gray uniform with maroon pinstripes, sat down to face the media. Bright lights flooded the eyes of the Mississippi State baseball players as they looked out at the room and prepared to talk about an unexpected end to a great season.
“It’s disappointing that we came this far and don’t get to finish it,” Rooker said Saturday. “The biggest disappointment to me is I don’t get to be around this group of guys anymore.”
Rooker paused as he tried to fight back tears. He bowed his head and rubbed his eyes, the eye black he was wearing during the game, all but gone.
“It’s a special group, and that’s what hurts the most, having to leave these guys,” Rooker said.
A 6-5 loss in 11 innings to Arizona wasn’t the ending Rooker or Sexton wanted, but as Sexton pointed out, “That’s baseball.” The results helped Arizona sweep No. 6 national seed and No. 4 MSU out of the Starkville Super Regional. The Wildcats beat the Bulldogs 1-0 Friday in Game 1 of the best-of-three series. The series win enabled Arizona to become the first team to punch its ticket to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
The end of the season hurt a little more because MSU seemingly had the game in hand after Sexton start on the mound and left in the sixth inning with a 3-1 lead. Jake Mangum had an RBI double in the seventh and Rooker hit his second solo home run of the game in the eighth to give MSU a 5-1 advantage.
But the Wildcats found life thanks to a three-run home run by Ryan Aguilar in the eighth. They then tied the game at 5 in the ninth and used a walk-off single by Cesar Salazar in the 11th to end the Bulldogs’ season.
When asked about what emotions he was feeling, Sexton couldn’t seem to find the right words to convey his mind-set. He paused and gasped as he struggled to put his emotions into words.
“No point in the game did I think we were going to lose,” Sexton said. “I’m proud of all our guys. I thought we battled the entire game. We made some mistakes.”
MSU beat Southeast Missouri State, Cal State Fullerton, and Louisiana Tech to advance to the super regionals. After finishing 24-30 (8-22 in the Southeastern Conference) and missing the postseason in 2015, MSU (44-18-1) won the SEC regular-season title with a 21-9 mark and returned to the postseason. The regular-season title outright was the Bulldogs’ first since 1989.
“They’re champions,” MSU coach John Cohen said. “They won the most difficult league in the nation and they won a regional. I think they achieved a lot, but they were wanting to get to Omaha. That was their goal. We’re one run short two days in a row, and it’s really disappointing.”
Cohen, who said it was a “close group,” pointed out that it was the last time many of his players would be on the same team. John Holland and Michael Smith, both seniors, played their last games. A school-record 11 players were taken in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player draft, including Rooker, Sexton, Dakota Hudson, Reid Humphreys, Daniel Brown, Jacob Robson, Zac Houston, Nathaniel Lowe, Gavin Collins, Vance Tatum, and Jack Kruger. All could leave, but redshirt sophomore Rooker and junior Kruger are expected back.
“I love my team and Bulldog nation,” Robson tweeted Sunday. “Thank you all for making my time here unforgettable. Always a Bulldog #HailState.”
Some fans were upset MSU didn’t advance to Omaha for the 10th time and voiced their opinions on Twitter. Others who were at the game Saturday left before the 11th inning, but the ones who stayed to the end gave the team a standing ovation. Rooker called it “special.”
“The fans have been behind us all year,” he said. “That’s huge. That’s why you come to Mississippi State, to have the fan support that we do. That means the world to us. The fans show up every day, so it meant a lot. As players, we’re really thankful for that.”
n In related news, Mangum was named a National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association First Team All-American, the publication announced Monday.
The Pearl native earned SEC Freshman of the Year honors and was named the 2016 C Spire Ferriss Trophy winner, which is given to the top collegiate baseball player in the state of Mississippi.
Mangum earned All-America honors from Baseball America and Freshman All-America honors from Louisville Slugger. He also was named first-team All-SEC.
He finished the season with a .408 batting average that more than likely will be good enough to win the SEC batting title. Florida is the only SEC team that advanced to the College World Series.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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