Mississippi State baseball’s season ended on Sunday in a painful 5-2 loss to Florida State that marked the end of the road for an inspired team that was on the outside looking in only a month earlier.
Interim head coach Justin Parker and company mounted a fierce push for the postseason, and more than earned their shot at the Seminoles in Tallahassee, but it wasn’t meant to be against one of the more well-rounded teams left standing in the NCAA tournament.
Here are the key moments that saw Game 6 of the Tallahassee Regional unravel for the Bulldogs.
Loaded for bear
Mississippi State faced four bases-loaded situations against Florida State, which is never a recipe for success. Although the Seminoles left 15 runners on base, eventually the dam will break as it so often does.
Both Karson Ligon and Luke Dotson worked out of jams across their six combined innings, but the Bulldogs’ inability to build on an early lead kept the pressure on the pitching staff.
Parker managed the staff about as well as could be expected, trusting Ligon to get out of two different bases-loaded jams before going to the bullpen and seeing that faith rewarded. He let Dotson go beyond two innings, his longest outing of the season, and he allowed a two-run home run in the seventh inning. With the score tied, Parker called on McPherson to hold the line. It was desperate times as the Bulldogs pushed for a Monday meeting, but the Seminoles unleashed on the fatigued freshman to take the lead with three runs in the eighth, the result of another bases-loaded situation.
Still, the exhausting innings from the pitchers were the reason State still had a chance in the final innings, and that work deserved the praise it got from Parker.
“I was greedy trying to get an extra inning out of a couple of those guys,” Parker said. “Dottie left a runner on, I thought the right play was to go for the lead runner at second and we just didn’t handle it. Maybe the throw was a little off-line. I thought Ryan was good, I know he didn’t have much rest, and I had a concern about him bouncing back. I thought his stuff was good, his poise was good, his command was good. They did a nice job.”
Ace work
Throughout the game, there were instances of trash talk between the teams, and in particular from the starting pitchers toward the opposing dugouts after dispatching the final batters of each inning. With the back-and-forth between the sides, there was little left unsaid on Sunday, especially from Florida State starter Wes Mendes, a familiar foe to the Bulldogs.
The Ole Miss transfer threw 105 pitches over eight innings, recording nine strikeouts while allowing just five hits, two walks, and two runs. MSU’s leadoff man, Gehrig Frei, sent the first pitch of the game to the scoreboard in left field. Joe Powell would add another solo shot in the fifth inning, but the Bulldogs failed to threaten apart from the deep ball.
In the seventh and eighth innings, it was clear Mendes was nearing the end of his night. In both innings, the Bulldogs were able to get a man aboard beforeMendes ruthlessly shut down their hopes.
He let the MSU dugout have it again as he made his way to the bench for the final time, setting the stage for his closer, Joe Charles, and a fiery finish.
Going down swinging
It became clear early in the ninth inning that the Bulldogs were up against too much, but they certainly didn’t believe it.
Slugger Noah Sullivan struck out on a called strike three. The pitch was about as inside as it could get, and Sullivan told the umpire how Bulldog fans felt about the call before being ejected.
Hunter Hines followed and went down in similar fashion, and this time the bench got involved. Hitting coach Jake Gautreau, an assistant to two head coaches and two interim head coaches, got the hook this time as things boiled over.
Bryce Chance would pick up a walk, but Joe Powell went down swinging as the Seminoles wrapped up the game.
If it was the final act in maroon and white, it was going to be a fight to the finish. Sullivan and Gautreau embodied that fight for the Bulldogs.
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