It wasn’t pretty early on offensively for No. 15 Mississippi State, but the team rose to the occasion late in its mid-week contest against visiting Memphis Tuesday to deliver head coach Brian O’Connor a victory present on his 55th birthday.
Holding onto just a narrow 3-2 lead, Vytus Valincius stepped up and drilled a three-run homer in the eighth inning to lift the team to a lively 6-2 win over the Tigers. The triumph for the Bulldogs (31-10, 10-8 SEC) improved their record in nonconference mid-week games to 10-1 on the season, and ended a spree of five straight wins for Memphis (15-23, 7-8 ACC). But before the late dramatics, Memphis looked as if it was due to break the game open early as it opened the contest by immediately putting the barrel on the ball with three hits in the first inning – one of which was an RBI single by James Smith IV to put his squad up 1-0.
In the second inning the Tigers kept up the tempo with three more hits to force a pitching change to take starter Tyler Pitzer off the mound and bring in Jack Gleason for his 17th appearance of the year. After giving up a bunt single, Gleason notched back-to-back punchouts to get the Bulldogs out of a jam.
Offensively for MSU, it was all flyouts, groundouts and strikeouts until Blake Bevis broke the hitless spell with a double in the third inning. The breakthrough rolled into the fourth inning where MSU grabbed its first lead of the game. The sequence started with Reed Stallman getting hit and taking first base. Bevis followed up with a single to center field and reached second base due to a fielding error by the Tigers trying to get a handle on the ball. Jacob Parker notched his first hit on a single to send home Stallman, and Woodson grounded out to third to allow Bevis to grab the 2-1 advantage.
Memphis, though, immediately tied the game in the top of the fifth on a solo homer by Javon Hernandez – his first home run of the year – off left-handed hurler Jack Bauer. That hit and score was the last allowed by Bauer through his two innings of work, and he handed the ball off to Maddox Miller, who kept the hot streak going.
Miller rang up four strikeouts through his two innings from the mound to keep Memphis off the board while the Bulldogs’ offense managed to put the pedal to the floor.
In the sixth inning Bevis clanged his second double of the game to get on second, and Vytus Valincius came in to pinch-hit for Parker and singled to give MSU a 3-2 lead. The fireworks erupted in the sky to add to the drama in the eighth inning when the Bulldogs doubled their score on Valincius’ three-run shot to left field.
Memphis had a chance to lessen its deficit in the top of the ninth inning after loading the bases off pitcher Dane Burns. The Tigers got a single, a hit batter and another single thanks to a muffed throw by second baseman Gehrig Frei. The sequence brought about a pitching change and Maddox Webb came in and struck out one and forced a fly out to close out the win.
MSU was outhit 10-8 and all six pitchers combined for 13 strikeouts and one walk. Bevis led the team with three hits, and Valincius had two with four RBI.
Up next, the Bulldogs host LSU for an SEC series that begins at 6 p.m Friday.
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