STARKVILLE — Taming a lineup as powerful and as deep as Georgia’s is no easy task, but Khal Stephen was more than up to the challenge.
The Purdue transfer did not have his best stuff in his first start of Southeastern Conference play against LSU, giving up five runs in just two innings, but in three outings since then, Stephen has pitched deep into the game and put Mississippi State in an excellent position to win. He went 6 ⅔ innings Friday night, holding UGA to one unearned run on five hits and striking out seven as MSU pulled away late in a 6-1 victory to open the three-game weekend series.
“It’s just sticking to the game plan and rolling with the punches,” Stephen said. “When you’re out there, you have to be a fighter and you have to make your on-field adjustments. It’s just being able to feel confident in everything I’m doing and rolling with it.”
Stephen struck out three batters, all looking, in the first two innings, and State (20-11, 5-5 SEC) took the lead for good in the bottom of the second. Connor Hujsak led off with a walk and hustled all the way to third on Bryce Chance’s single up the middle, which allowed him to score on Logan Kohler’s sacrifice fly to left.
“We like to think we’re a really aggressive baserunning team,” Hujsak said. “A lot of teams in the SEC play deep in the outfield, and you just have to take advantage of it. Bryce hit that ball perfectly up the middle, and I just got a good turn and let the legs do the rest of the work.”
Amani Larry led off the third with a long home run to left field, his third of the season, but MSU’s offense went quiet after that, not managing another hit until there were two outs in the eighth. Stephen ran into his first real trouble in the fifth, giving up a pair of one-out singles to the bottom two hitters in Georgia’s batting order.
A passed ball allowed one run to score, but after intentionally walking Charlie Condon, the nation’s home run leader, Stephen struck out former MSU third baseman Slate Alford — who received a smattering of boos from the Dudy Noble Field crowd before his first at-bat — to end the inning and strand two runners in scoring position.
“His curveball was really good tonight, which you have to have,” head coach Chris Lemonis said. “This lineup is scary, especially all the right-handers they have in there. He always has located the fastball, and he’s getting going earlier.”
Stephen departed after issuing a two-out walk in the seventh, his first unintentional walk of the game, and Tyler Davis entered for a left-on-left matchup against leadoff hitter Corey Collins. But Collins worked a walk of his own, and Cam Schuelke relieved him with Condon coming to the plate.
Schuelke only needed one pitch to win the battle, getting Condon to hit a harmless bouncer back to the mound to preserve MSU’s one-run lead.
“He’s probably the most confident kid I’ve got,” Lemonis said. “It was a big moment in the game. That guy is scary. … Our league has some really special hitters right now, but that was a great pitch by Cam.”
State finally gave its pitchers some breathing room in the eighth when David Mershon, bunting on his own, legged out a two-out single. Dakota Jordan was hit by a pitch, and Hunter Hines went with an outside pitch on a 2-2 count, grounding it through the left side for an RBI single. Hujsak then delivered the big blow, a laser beam of a three-run homer to left on a hanging breaking ball.
Hujsak is now batting .400 with four doubles and three home runs through MSU’s first 10 conference games. State will try to clinch the series Saturday night behind the ambidextrous Jurrangelo Cijntje, with Leighton Finley getting the start for Georgia (23-7, 4-6).
“It felt really good to take the pressure off us. That’s what we needed,” Hujsak said. “We’ve been one swing away, one pitch away in so many games. We finally got it (and) it feels good.”
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