STARKVILLE – Mississippi State baseball has an all-too familiar face standing in its way of a return to the College World Series.
The Bulldogs will head to Athens, Georgia, this weekend to take on the No. 3 national seed Georgia Bulldogs in the super regionals. State faced UGA four times this season, losing all four.
UGA’s biggest margin of victory in the three games was just three runs, a 10-inning 8-5 win in Game 3 of the regular season series between Bulldogs in Starkville. MSU dropped Game 1 of the series 10-9, and lost Game Two 3-1. UGA beat MSU 5-3 when the teams met in the SEC Tournament.
“It was a great college baseball series,” MSU head coach Brian O’Connor said of UGA’s regular-season sweep. “We just came out on the wrong end in all three ball games. And there is lessons to be learned from that.”
Game 2 of the Georgia series, O’Connor said, has the biggest lesson for State to learn before this weekend. MSU left 13 runners on base in the 3-1 loss, failing to deliver the knockout blow.
O’Connor said his team is a “more developed offensive club,” since the series with UGA, and they sure looked the part last weekend. MSU outscored opponents 39-11 in its three wins during the Starkville Regional. The Bulldogs reached double-digit runs in each game.
Graduate Vytas Valincius attributed the offensive outburst to “sticking with our process and approach.”
“I think if we do that in Georgia, we’ll be just fine,” Valincius said.
Freshman Jacob Parker paved the way offensively for MSU in its regional. He had seven hits and seven RBI en route to being named the regional’s most outstanding player.
“He did the work, he works very hard, he plays loose and plays with a smile on his face, and he’s earned everything he’s gotten,” O’Connor said of Parker. “When you earn everything you get, then you get this thing that is the most important thing I believe in baseball, and that’s elite self confidence, and Jacob Parker has elite self confidence.”
MSU’s pitchers spent most of the weekend pitching comfortably from in front, often taking the mound with a lot of cushion on the scoreboard. Tomas Valincius had the longest outing of any starter in the regional, going 7.1 innings with 10 strikeouts, allowing three runs.
O’Connor said he isn’t ready to announce who will take the bump in Game 1 against UGA, although he admitted, “You probably have a pretty good idea.” Valincius has been MSU’s number one starter, starting 16 games with a 2.99 total ERA.
“We’re going to do everything we have to do to win the first ball game in front of us, and then adjust from there,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor is in his first year as MSU head coach, but is no stranger to super regional success. He won seven of his nine super regional appearances as head coach of Virginia from 2004-2025.
Scouting the opponent
Georgia didn’t quite put up the runs State did, but much like MSU, handled its opener against Long Island University, and two games against Liberty in blowout fashion. UGA held its regional opponents to five total runs.
Junior Daniel Jackson is Georgia’s leader on offense. The SEC Player of the Year leads the Bulldogs in batting average (.396), OPS (1.323), home runs (29) and RBI (83). MSU kept Jackson relatively under control in its meetings earlier this year. He has a hit in every game against MSU, but never drove in a run.
UGA has three other hitters with an OPS over 1.000: sophomore Rylan Lujo, junior Tre Phelps and sophomore Henry Allen. Both Lujo and Phelps have recorded four RBI in games against State. Phelps brought in four runs in the first meeting, Lujo did the same in the 8-5 series finale.
Junior Joey Volchko is Georgia’s leading starter on the mound. Across his 16 starts, Volchko has a 3.87 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP. He started two games against the Bulldogs, going five innings and allowing two runs in each.
Graduate Caden Aoki has a 3.86 ERA over his 18 appearances. Aoki also saw MSU twice this year, pitching 4.1 total innings and allowing one earned. He got the win against State in the regular season-series finale, and earned the save against MSU in the SEC tournament.
“We faced a lot of their pitchers, obviously faced their hitters,” Gherig Frei said of using State’s losses against UGA in preparing for this weekend. “It comes into play, especially at practice and stuff this weekend.”
Jake is the Mississippi State athletics reporter for The Dispatch.
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