STARKVILLE – There was no doubt left in Dudy Noble Field when Noah Sullivan launched a three-run home run in the bottom of the third inning. His second deep shot of the day put the Bulldogs up 13-0 over Lipscomb, and was part of a 12-run home half to build a 19-0 lead before the visitors had even started a second run through their batting order.
The Diamond Dawgs, now 14-2, completed a busy week with a 26-0 demolition of the Bisons in the program’s biggest home win since 1999.
The offensive display came after a start-and-stop week for the MSU order. Six runs from two innings at Southern Miss, a scoreless first half in Game One against Lipscomb and then a slow finish in Game Two had head coach Brian O’Connor looking for more.
“When those opportunities present themselves, we’ve got to play better complementary, opportunistic baseball, and capitalize on more of the opportunities we have and that we had tonight,” he said.
The Bulldogs left nine runners on base in their Friday win to clinch the series, and despite a good showing to take control early in the game, O’Connor was looking for more from his guys in situations with a chance to add to the advantage.
“We’re better than that. I challenged the team… that we come out and play a really good fundamental baseball game tomorrow.”
The Bulldogs did just that, allowing just one hit, one walk and no errors defensively in the run-rule shutout victory.
“The thing that I was impressed about our team today is we played the cleanest, best game that we’ve played this weekend. That wasn’t because of the 26 runs. Our defensive intensity at 10 a.m. was really good. I thought Duke Stone was outstanding, our pitching was very good, and our offensive approach was the best that it’s been. That’s what I’m proud of, that in every facet of the game we showed up at 7:15 a.m. this morning, and the guys were locked in, ready to go and play the most complete game of the week.”
The tone was set early, not at the plate, but by emerging starting pitcher Duke Stone. The sophomore got his first Sunday start a week ago against No. 1 UCLA in Arlington, Texas, and got his third win of the season with four perfect innings to shut down any hopes the visitors might have had about swiping a game before heading back to Nashville.
Stone registered six punchouts and fanned all three batters faced at the top of the fourth inning despite waiting nearly an hour to get back out on the mound as his teammates pummeled the Lipscomb pitching staff.
It was another strong display of the team’s firepower and depth on both sides of the ball, which Stone observed fondly after the game.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Stone said when asked about the team chemistry coming together quickly with so many new faces. “I was talking to Mike Robers (Director of Player Development), he said they took a lot of pride in that this offseason, putting together a team that not only has talent… we all bonded really well, they did a good job bringing in guys and there’s not one guy that’s a problem.”
Early tests against Top 10 opposition were both decided by just one run against the Bulldogs, and while those losses stung, they have done little to slow a group with plenty of confidence and camaraderie to match.
The Bulldogs will play one more nonconference game against Tulane in Biloxi on Tuesday before traveling to No. 6 Arkansas to begin their SEC campaign next weekend.
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