STARKVILLE — Mississippi State was just happy to see someone other than Michael Yusypchuk take the mound in the eighth inning Friday.
Three days after the No. 18 Bulldogs were shut out against Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, the freshman right-hander for Missouri State had the Bulldog bats tied in knots. He allowed just two hits, both singles to Lukas Buckner, and one walk while striking out eight over seven scoreless innings, making it 18 straight frames for Mississippi State’s offense without a run.
“Tip your hat to their pitcher,” Bulldogs head coach Chris Lemonis said. “We didn’t know a lot about him. Young freshman coming in. He throws one of those high vertical breaking balls that just stayed at the top of the zone. I don’t know if we’ll see that much vertical break all year. He was good early, and we weren’t good. I’ll give them credit, but also we have to get better.”
With Yusypchuck finally out of the game, the Bulldogs — trailing by only one thanks to an outstanding start from Pico Kohn — woke up just in time. Aaron Downs was hit by a pitch to lead off the eighth and stole second, then Dylan Cupp caught a break when he was ruled to have checked his swing with two strikes on him. Cupp ultimately walked, and Ross Highfill’s one-out infield single loaded the bases.
The Bears chose to leave the infield back even with the tying run at third, so they could only get the out at first on Ace Reese’s ground ball to second as Downs scored to knot things up. That set the stage for Noah Sullivan, who sat on a 1-1 breaking ball and split the gap in right-center field for a go-ahead two-run double.
Luke Dotson issued a pair of two-out walks in the ninth but induced a routine fly ball to end the game, earning his first save of the year in the Bulldogs’ 3-1 victory.
“Our offense hasn’t been exactly what we wanted, and you could feel a little bit of tension building,” Sullivan said. “But we have the best coaches in the country, we have the best hitters in the country, and it’s only a matter of time until it starts clicking.”
Coming off an 11-strikeout, no-walk performance in last week’s season opener against Manhattan, Kohn repeated those numbers in the first game of this series. He did allow his first run of the season in the third inning when Tyler Epstein hit a leadoff double, moved to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on Caden Bogenpohl’s RBI single.
The senior allowed just one baserunner after that, on a bloop double by Taeg Gollert in the sixth. He came back out to start the seventh for a left-on-left matchup against Zack Stewart, recording his 11th strikeout of the day before turning things over to the bullpen.
Virginia transfer Chase Hungate finished the seventh and got the first out in the eighth, and freshman Dane Burns earned the win after finishing up that inning.
“I’m trying to be consistent with my mechanics,” Kohn said. “Throughout the week, I’m really trying to fine-tune everything, so once I go out there, I’m not really thinking about it. I’m just doing it.”
Buckner, a freshman making his first start as a Bulldog, was the only player who could figure out Yusypchuk. With a left-handed swing reminiscent of Ichiro Suzuki, he stroked singles in the third and sixth innings. The other Bulldog batters were out in front of Yusypchuk’s breaking pitches, with eight strikeouts and four infield pop-ups.
Sullivan had struck out twice and grounded into a force out against Yusypchuk, and was grateful to be seeing Jake Syverson instead when he came up in the eighth with the game on the line.
“Luckily, baseball is a long game,” Sullivan said. “I got four at-bats today, three really bad ones. But the last one, (hitting coach Jake Gautreau) was saying the guy throws a lot of sliders, so I sat on that and luckily got a good pitch to hit.”
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