STARKVILLE — Mississippi State sophomore left fielder Rowdey Jordan didn’t want it.
Shifting his way toward a towering fly ball hit by Miami first baseman Alex Toral, Jordan looked to senior Jake Mangum.
“Take it. Take it. Take it,” Mangum yelled.
As the ball dove to the playing surface at Dudy Noble Field, Jordan moved under it. With the snapping noise of the ball hitting leather and a quick bobble, Jordan secured the adventurous fly out to push the Bulldogs one out away from a date in the NCAA tournament’s best-of-three Super Regionals.
Following MSU’s 5-2 victory against Miami on Sunday, Jordan addressed the play to a chorus of laughter from the normally stone-faced Mangum, senior starter Peyton Plumlee, and MSU coach Chris Lemonis.
“That’s the highest ball I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “I just felt like it wasn’t going to come down. But (I) made the catch and felt good to get the second out.”
The play was merely one step in the Bulldogs’ victory against the Hurricanes, but the response was telling because it showed Jordan and the Bulldogs are having fun.
Throughout the Starkville Regional, MSU showed flashes of the excitement that postseason baseball elicits.
In a wild 11-6 victory against Southern on Friday in the first game of the regional, MSU senior reliever Cole Gordon offered an outward display of emotion. Tasked with getting a six-out save, Gordon retired six of the seven batters he faced via strikeout. Striding off the mound after sneaking out of an eighth-inning jam, Gordon released an exulted roar, much to the enjoyment of the 11,000 maroon and white clad onlookers.
“(Southern) came out there and hit good pitches,” Gordon said. “My goal was to go out there, fill it up, and force contact if I could. If not, just make good pitches to help the other guys out.”
Redshirt junior Ethan Small offered a similar scene Saturday against Central Michigan. With runners on first and third base in the bottom of the third inning, Small struck out Griffin Lockwood-Powell on three pitches.
Turning toward the CMU dugout, Small barked toward the Chippewas before storming back to the Bulldogs’ bench.
“Only time I do it is when the opposition has been chirping for some time,” Small said in a tweet following the game. “I’ve never been a crazy emotion guy on the mound. But if ya got something to say… We can respond. We compete.”
The Bulldogs have competed. Mangum, their senior leader, has led the way. On Sunday, he broke out of a four-game hitless streak with an infield hit. After he beat the throw from the pitcher, Mangum crouched at first base and gave the MSU dugout a thumbs up in celebration.
“Everyone on our team is going through scuffles, but the one thing everyone has done is kept a positive attitude because we’ve been winning all year,” Mangum said. “It is miserable to be struggling and losing. When you are winning, it’s easy to stay positive. That’s a testament to the guys in the locker room.”
After coasting through the Starkville Regional, MSU (49-13) hopes to use similar emotion, flair and fun to carry it into its best-of-three series against No. 11 national seed Stanford in the Super Regionals at Dudy Noble Field.
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Scores/Schedule
· Monday’s Games
East Carolina 10, Campbell 3
East Carolina 12, Campbell 3, East Carolina advances
Louisville 4, Illinois State 3, Louisville advances
Oklahoma State 3, UConn 1, OSU advances
Michigan 17, Creighton 6, Michigan advances
Stanford 9, Fresno State 7, Stanford advances
UCLA 6, Loyola Marymount 3, UCLA advances
Super Regionals Schedule
· Saturday’s Game
Stanford at Mississippi State, 2 p.m. (ESPN2)
· Sunday’s Game
Stanford at Mississippi State, 8 p.m. (ESPNU)
· Monday’s Game
x-Stanford at Mississippi State, 6 p.m. (ESPN2)
x-if necessary
· Saturday’s Game
Ole Miss at Arkansas, 11 a.m. (ESPN)
· Sunday’s Game
Ole Miss at Arkansas, 2 p.m. (ESPNU)
· Monday’s Game
x-Ole Miss at Arkansas, 3 p.m. (ESPN2)
x-if necessary
Rest of Super
Regionals Matchups
Michigan at UCLA
Duke at Vanderbilt
Oklahoma State at Texas Tech
East Carolina at Louisville
Florida State at LSU
Auburn at North Carolina
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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