TALLAHASSEE — Mississippi State baseball may have had a difficult path to the postseason, but the team made it abundantly clear that they feel at home in the postseason on Friday.
On a night with four major upsets in NCAA regionals, the Bulldogs (35-21) left little room for doubt against Northeastern (48-10), ending the Huskies’ 27-game winning streak with a dominant 11-2 win.
MSU matched up against Northeastern’s top ace, Will Jones, who boasted an 11-0 record and a 1.82 ERA, the second-best mark in Division I baseball this season. By the time he left in the third inning, his ERA rose to 2.63.
“I was really proud of these guys tonight,” interim head coach Justin Parker said after the game. “They’ve had their back against the wall for about a month now, and that’s the kind of baseball we’ve been playing. It was nice to do that tonight against a really good opponent.”
The Bulldogs piled on early, scoring three runs in the second inning and four in the third to answer early runs from Northeastern.
Starter Ben Davis got the win after going five innings with just one earned run and three strikeouts. Freshman Ryan McPherson took MSU the rest of the way, posting four shutout innings and striking out the Huskies 1-2-3 in the ninth inning to finish the job. With four insurance runs to boost the pitcher’s confidence, the result was an efficient night on both sides of the ball and a strong start to the regional.
“I thought it was clean in all three phases,” Parker added. “I thought we pitched well, got a great start, and finished the game well on the mound. I thought defensively, especially in the infield, we were really good. Offensively, good early and then tacking on runs late is just a recipe for success.”
MSU is now 10-2 since Parker took charge. Along with a renewed confidence in the defense and pitching staff, the Bulldog bats have continued to shift the team into a new gear. The approach on Friday was aggressive, showing no fear against a team with the best ERA in Division I. It didn’t matter that it was a mid-major program; the Bulldogs were not taking the matchup for granted, and it paid off on the scoreboard.
“I thought we had a really good plan going in,” assistant coach Jake Gautreau said on the post-game radio broadcast. “Obviously, when the game starts, there’s nothing I can do about it, but we had a pretty good feel for what he was going to do. It’s a lot of off-speed, a lot of curveballs, a lot of sliders to lefties, and just enough fastballs to keep you honest.”
Joe Powell led the Bulldogs with three RBI hits, driving in four runs, and recording a two-run blast to the scoreboard to take the 2025 squad past the 1998 Bulldogs for most home runs in a single season. Noah Sullivan would add to that record with a two-run shot of his own in the ninth inning, while Gatlin Sanders and Bryce Chance both got on the scoresheet as well.
Chance had a remarkable night, going 4-5 with an RBI to keep the offense going throughout the night, joining Sanders, Powell and Ross Highfill with multiple hits.
“I thought the guys stuck with the plan and executed it very well,” Gautreau continued. “(Jones) is very good, they’re a great team, his numbers were crazy, but we spent the whole week preparing for him.”
Chance and the bottom of the Bulldog order accounted for 10 of the team’s 13 hits on the night, something fans will hope to see continue into the rest of the weekend. They seemed to feed off of each other whenever one got going, and it paid off early with seven runs in the first three innings.
The entire Bulldog lineup was oozing confidence by the end of the night, something the coaches will hope to see more of on Saturday.
“It’s huge, I call it the machine,” Gautreau said. “When we get going and we get locked and we have a good approach, we don’t strike out, we take our walks, we get the machine rolling. And we can be tough that way.”
MSU will face regional hosts Florida State on Saturday at 5 p.m. The game will be available via stream on ESPN+.
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