HOOVER, Ala. — By lunchtime Thursday, Mississippi State’s stay in Hoover was over.
The No. 3-seeded Bulldogs followed up a 13-1 run-rule drubbing courtesy of Florida on Wednesday by laying an egg for the second straight day.
“It’s embarrassing,” MSU center fielder Rowdey Jordan said.
MSU was run-ruled for the second straight day and third straight SEC tournament contest dating back to 2019, falling 12-2 to Tennessee in a loser-out contest that was flat out disastrous all the way around for the Bulldogs. Friday starter Christian MacLeod was ineffective. The bats went quiet for the second straight day. Things were so tenuous coach Chris Lemonis elected to pitch his Saturday starter by the fifth inning to either stop the bleeding or ensure Will Bednar got at least some work in before regionals.
“Not a really good game. Two really poor games in a row,” Lemonis said. “That’s as much as I can say about it.”
Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong. The Bulldogs picked a bad time for it to happen, and it might cost them a national seed. Entering the conference tournament, MSU was firmly projected by multiple outlets to be awarded a top-eight team when the NCAA released brackets for the NCAA tournament Monday.
After the Bulldogs got outscored 25-3 in a two day span, that prospect seems bleaker than it did Monday, although it still remains a possibility.
“I think it’s a concern,” Lemonis said of the two losses impacting MSU’s seeding. “Our résumé was really good coming in, and I think somebody would have to do something pretty amazing to go over us, but it’s always a concern. You’re trying to build your résumé every day, and we came in with a really good one, and we played just two tough games the last two days.”
With the loss, Lemonis fell to 1-4 in the SEC tournament in his MSU tenure, losing the last three contests by at least six runs dating back to 2019.
“We try to emphasize it,” Lemonis said of the SEC tournament. “Shoot, we had two hard practices. Now, maybe I could have moved all my pitchers up and done that. In hindsight, that’s probably what I should have done, but our pitchers haven’t pitched great when we moved them up, so there’s a reason we didn’t move our pitchers up.
“Man, we came in here to win it. There’s no doubt about it.”
Similar to Wednesday’s shellacking against Florida, the Bulldogs found themselves staring at a large deficit after the second inning. Haunted by a walk and a hit batter, MacLeod served up a three-run home run to Pete Derkay that sailed deep to right center field over the South Carolina logo en route to giving Tennessee a 3-0 lead. The Vols added another run in the inning to stretch the lead to four, and when the second inning ended, MSU pitching had allowed 17 runs in its first nine innings in the SEC tournament.
SEC Player of the Year Tanner Allen roped an RBI single in the third to bring MSU within three runs, but Kamren James ended the Bulldogs rally by striking out against Tennessee starter Chad Dallas with two outs with the bases loaded on a sweeping breaking ball on a 3-2 pitch. Dallas carved up Bulldogs hitters, pitching 6.2 innings of one-run ball while allowing six hits and striking out two batters.
In the fifth, Vols right fielder Jordan Beck went first-pitch hunting and hit the second home run off MacLeod over the Texas A&M logo in right center field to stretch the lead to 5-1 in the fourth. MacLeod finished the frame and was pulled after the inning, bringing his line to five runs on five hits allowed with four strikeouts in four innings.
Bednar, MSU’s typical Saturday starter, replaced MacLeod in the fifth, in what may have been considered a white flag move by Lemonis, ironic as that sounds. Lemonis probably wasn’t optimistic about the Bulldogs’ chances of making a comeback and wanted to get his second-best starter some work before regionals. Bednar was ineffective in his time on the mound, allowing three more runs to cross in two innings.
Even Landon Sims, entering the contest with an ERA around 0.50, couldn’t get anybody out. Sims allowed two runs all season, then allowed four in the bottom of the ninth courtesy of five straight Vols reaching to let Tennessee run-rule the Bulldogs.
“If you’re going to win in tournament baseball, you’ve got to pitch and defend,” Lemonis said. “Obviously, we pitched very poorly while we were here. We didn’t defend. We’ve defended okay today, but we didn’t defend the other day.”
With the Bulldogs eliminated from the SEC tournament, MSU will now have to wait until Monday to find out if it did enough in the eyes of the committee to earn a national seed in the NCAA tournament.
“We’re going to go home and regroup. I don’t know what else we can do,” Allen said.
Hodge is the former sports editor for The Dispatch.
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