OXFORD — Chris Lemonis came to Swayze Field for Saturday’s series finale thinking right-handed reliever KC Hunt was off limits.
Hunt threw 54 pitches in Friday’s 10-7 Mississippi State win over Ole Miss, so Lemonis didn’t think Hunt would be able to make back-to-back appearances for the Bulldogs.
But the New Jersey native was the first MSU hurler to approach pitching coach Scott Foxhall before the game.
“I’m good,” Hunt assured Foxhall. “I feel good. I’m ready to go.”
Hunt showed that Saturday, carrying Mississippi State (24-17, 8-10 Southeastern Conference) through a perilous stretch in a wild, 7-6 win over Ole Miss in 11 innings to give the Bulldogs a critical series victory.
“I knew I wanted to go back out there after last night,” Hunt said. “I just wanted to put it on the line for the boys a little bit.”
Hunt entered with one out in the ninth after a tying two-run home run by Ole Miss’ Jacob Gonzalez as Mississippi State missed out on a chance to shut the door.
But the Bulldogs still got it done. Hunt shut the Rebels down for eight huge outs, and Brad Cumbest homered in the top of the 11th to provide all the offense MSU needed.
“Words can’t describe what this means for this team,” Cumbest said.
Cumbest took a hanging slider out to left with one out in the 11th, putting MSU back in the lead. The senior left fielder followed a four-hit night in Friday’s comeback win with the key hit Saturday.
He helped Mississippi State notch its sixth straight series win against Ole Miss. The Bulldogs are 18-4 against the Rebels since 2015.
For Cumbest, a Mississippi native, it was another sweet victory against MSU’s rival school.
“I grew up hating those guys,” Cumbest said. “This is awesome. This is the story of any Mississippi kid’s life.”
It was a narrative with plenty of twists and turns Saturday as the Bulldogs came back to clinch the series.
Ole Miss erased a 6-2 deficit when Gonzalez took Pico Kohn deep to right center field on a center-cut fastball in the ninth. The Rebels got the first two runs back on a bases-loaded walk and a sac fly in the sixth.
“They probably wanted revenge from yesterday when we were down to them, but I don’t blame them,” Cumbest said. “I would have been pretty mad, too.”
But the Bulldogs got the last laugh. Hunt came in and got two outs to send the game to extras, four words echoing in his mind: Keep it right here.
He did, and though it took a little while, MSU came out on top.
Lemonis said he challenged his players to once again play tough and compete — a task they were up for in a game that lasted more than four hours.
“They couldn’t have done a better job tonight,” Lemonis said.
Mississippi State again fell behind in the first inning — the case in all three games on the weekend — but the Bulldogs rallied for the lead.
A three-run home run by Hunter Hines, his second in as many games, put MSU up 4-1 in the fifth inning. After Ole Miss’ Hayden Leatherwood homered to get a run back, RJ Yeager added a much-needed two-run shot in the sixth.
Mississippi State escaped Oxford with a win despite leaving 13 runners on base in the first eight innings. The Bulldogs stranded the bases loaded in the third inning and again in the eighth.
Cumbest didn’t help matters with a pop-up to shortstop in the third, but the missed opportunity was gone from his mind by the time he spotted a mistake pitch by Brandon Johnson in the 11th.
“He’s the guy who, what he did three innings ago, he doesn’t even remember,” Lemonis said. “He just keeps playing the game, and you see that in that big swing there at the end.”
Hunt got three quick fly-ball outs on five pitches to make Cumbest’s homer stand up as the winning score, and the Bulldogs left Swayze Field with a big series win.
Lemonis said he hopes that can springboard Mississippi State, which has now won its past two conference series, to a run down the stretch. That will start with Tuesday’s nonconference Governor’s Cup matchup against these same Rebels in Pearl before a conference series at Missouri next weekend.
“It gives them a belief — even when we give it up in the ninth, the belief that we can come back and win,” Lemonis said. “For us right now, it’s about every SEC win that we can get. We just need every one, and they’ve got to stay hungry for those.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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