STARKVILLE — Jurrangelo Cijntje had thrown 109 pitches on a hot, steamy Saturday afternoon, but as far as he was concerned, there was no way he was coming out of the game with two outs in the seventh inning.
Mississippi State was enjoying a five-run lead when Cijntje struck out the first two Alabama hitters in the seventh before Ian Petrutz doubled down the left-field line. With the dangerous freshman Justin Lebron coming to the plate, Bulldogs pitching coach Justin Parker strode out to the mound, prepared to take the ball from Cijntje and hand it to MSU’s best left-handed reliever, Tyler Davis.
But Cijntje was having none of it.
“(Parker) came out, and he was like, ‘I think we’re going to (Davis) here,’” Cijntje said. “I was like, ‘I’m not coming out. If you like it or not, I’m not coming out.’ I’m already in the game, so I just didn’t want to come out. I feel like I could throw nine innings. I didn’t have my best stuff today, but I still battled through it.”
Cijntje got his way and needed just one more pitch to get out of the inning, retiring Lebron on a long fly ball to right field. He scattered seven hits and plunked three batters, but he held the Crimson Tide to just one run and struck out eight without issuing a walk as the No. 16 Bulldogs defeated No. 23 Alabama 8-1 to clinch their third straight series win.
The Crimson Tide went in front in the third on a solo home run from Max Grant, but Cijntje escaped further damage in the inning, and MSU’s offense gave him the lead in the bottom half. In danger of wasting Logan Kohler’s leadoff double, the Bulldogs (32-15, 14-9 Southeastern Conference) tied the game on Bryce Chance’s RBI single and pulled ahead for good on David Mershon’s two-run homer to left-center.
“We have really good hitters and we stick to the approach, just try to grind out pitchers and have really good at-bats,” Kohler said. “We’re worried about just putting barrels on balls, moving runners and swinging at strikes and being on time. That’s been our focus, and a lot of the guys are doing it.”
MSU kept adding on in the middle innings, extending the lead on a sacrifice fly by Amani Larry in the fourth and RBI singles by Kohler and Johnny Long in the sixth. Kohler homered in the eighth for his third hit of the day and Chance added a run-scoring double to complete the scoring.
Cijntje’s only three up, three down inning came in the fifth, when he retired Alabama (28-18, 9-14) on just seven pitches, but he kept the Crimson Tide off the board after the early long ball. He earned his seventh win of the season and lowered his ERA to 3.53, a year after going 3-5 with an ERA of 8.10.
“Where he’s come from last year to this year is such a growing process for him,” head coach Chris Lemonis said. “Not just the stuff, it’s more the maturity of competing and being a tough SEC pitcher.”
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