After dropping Thursday night’s series opener at Texas A&M, No. 21 Mississippi State got an outstanding pitching performance from Khal Stephen to even the series Friday night before the No. 7 Aggies took Saturday’s rubber game.
Stephen, a transfer from Purdue, pitched 6 ⅔ innings and allowed just one run on five hits, striking out five and walking three in a 5-1 Bulldogs victory. MSU (17-8, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) wasted a scoring chance in the first inning and fell behind in the second, but the bats woke up in the fifth.
Amani Larry was hit by a pitch to lead off and moved to second on a single by David Mershon. With one out, Hunter Hines continued his hot start to conference play with a three-run home run over the right field wall that flipped the game on its head and gave the Bulldogs a 3-1 lead. They added two more in the inning after singles by Connor Hujsak and Aaron Downs, who scored on an error and a sacrifice fly, respectively.
That was more than enough for Stephen, who gave way to Cam Schuelke with two outs in the seventh. Schuelke struck out the dangerous Gavin Grahovac to end that inning, and Tyler Davis held Texas A&M (21-3, 3-3) scoreless in the eighth and ninth to preserve the win.
The following afternoon, MSU could do very little against Aggies left-hander Justin Lamkin, who struck out 12 Bulldogs over 7 ⅓ innings of two-hit, one-run ball. Texas A&M took the lead in the bottom of the first when Jurrangelo Cijntje surrendered a solo homer to Braden Montgomery, who took Cijntje deep again for a two-run shot in the fourth. Caden Sorrell hit the Aggies’ third home run of the day against Cijntje in the fifth, and the hosts added another run in the sixth.
MSU did not put a runner on base until Hines’ leadoff double in the fifth, and the Bulldogs were unable to advance him any farther. Grahovac’s RBI single in the seventh gave Texas A&M a sixth run before MSU broke the shutout in the eighth on a Hujsak single, a Bryce Chance walk and an RBI single by Logan Kohler.
That was as close as the Bulldogs would get. Hines was called out on strikes to end the game and exchanged words with the home plate umpire before being escorted back to the dugout.
The road swing continues for MSU with a midweek game at Samford on Tuesday night, followed by a weekend series at No. 6 Florida.
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