STARKVILLE — It’s been just two weeks since Mississippi State rode the bus home from Hattiesburg after being held hitless until the sixth inning in a shutout loss to Southern Miss. On Wednesday, the Bulldogs played like they had been waiting for vengeance from the moment they arrived back in Starkville.
With the wind whipping out to right field, MSU blasted five home runs and banged out 20 hits, scoring multiple runs in five different innings en route to an 18-3 run-rule victory over the No. 20 Golden Eagles in the rematch at Dudy Noble Field.
“We’re good. I really, truly believe we’re good,” Bulldogs head coach Chris Lemonis said. “We just have to play better, and this was a step in that direction. We have a week and a half here before we get to SEC play (to) build some confidence and some momentum.”
Bryce Chance was first to leave the yard, hitting an opposite-field shot into the right-field jetstream in the first inning. MSU (8-4) added another run on three straight two-out singles, the last of which came from Hunter Hines to drive in Noah Sullivan.
Hines entered the game with just one hit in his last 21 at-bats dating back to the first matchup with Southern Miss, and the senior slugger was even benched for two games last weekend in Houston. But he simplified his approach in a key spot in his first at-bat Wednesday, lining an RBI single up the middle. He added another run-scoring single in the sixth.
“We need him. I know it’s been tough. My heart goes out to him. I know how hard the kid works,” Lemonis said. “We have a lot of special pieces, but he has a chance to be one of the better players in the league, and he’s done it before.”
The Golden Eagles (9-4) scratched out a run in the second and tied the game in the third against Bulldogs starter Jacob Pruitt, but MSU went back in front for good in its half of the third on back-to-back homers by Sullivan and Nolan Stevens. Stevens jumped all over a left-on-left breaking ball and sent it out to center field, the deepest part of the ballpark.
A part-time two-way player who hit just one home run in 26 at-bats as a freshman last year, Stevens hit his third and fourth long balls of the year Wednesday, blasting a towering two-run shot to right in the fifth.
“It’s really just not overswinging,” Stevens said. “Our coaches talked before the game about how it was a (hitters’) ballpark today and we don’t have to overswing to get it out. A lot of people try to overswing, but really you don’t. You just have to hit something hard, and you don’t have to change anything at all.”
Chance, Ace Reese, Sullivan and Stevens — batting second through fifth in the lineup — were a combined 12-for-17, with Sullivan hitting safely in all four of his at-bats. Reese capped the scoring with a three-run blast in the sixth inning, his sixth home run of the year.
The bottom of the order was also effective. Gatlin Sanders, making his first start as a Bulldog at second base, had a walk and a single and scored twice. Dylan Cupp, batting in the ninth spot, reached base in all four plate appearances with a double, a single and two walks.
“That’s why you see a score like that,” Lemonis said. “Gatlin gave us some really competitive at-bats. He’s a good player. He probably should have played a little more to this point, but I like him. He’s a slow heartbeat guy, so he doesn’t get too sped up.”
Pruitt labored a bit in his 3 ⅔-inning start, allowing three runs (two earned) on three hits with three walks and just two strikeouts. Chase Hungate was excellent in relief and Evan Siary closed the game out with a scoreless seventh.
MSU hosts Queens in a three-game series starting Friday night, the final weekend before the start of Southeastern Conference play.
“We played a few games where the mentality was not there,” Stevens said. “Meeting (Southern Miss) today, you could just tell the buy-in was different. It wasn’t just, ‘We’re going to go out there and kill these guys.’ Every guy in the dugout wanted to win.”
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