STARKVILLE – A historic weekend for Mississippi State baseball brought the first SEC series win of 2026. The No. 6 Bulldogs improved to 20-4, 4-2 in SEC play, with a sweep of Vanderbilt at Dudy Noble Field, doing so in front of Friday and Saturday crowds that saw the program take control of every spot on the list of top 25 on-campus attendances in NCAA baseball history.
The series did not come without hiccups, but head coach Brian O’Connor saw his side overcome everything that came their way to clinch the program’s first home series win over the Commodores since 2014 and first sweep since 2000.
“Three huge wins,” O’Connor said after a 17-7 Game Three win on Sunday. “They were all a little bit different, but today with the wind blowing, a hitters type day, and our offensive approach was just relentless. Very opportunistic, but there’s a lot of two-strike RBI hits.”
The Bulldogs wrapped up the weekend with a 19-hit performance against a Vandy bullpen that was pushed to the limit. Yet another two-out hit from Bryce Chance finished the game by run-rule in the seventh inning, but it was still a nearly three-hour contest where MSU kept swinging and connecting, scoring at least one run in every single inning. It was a reflection of the team’s competitive spirit, and a desire to finish the job before turning the page.
“I challenged the team last night: Are you satisfied?” O’Connor said. “That you have to learn as a team, in this conference, when you have an opportunity to do something special on a weekend, you need to capitalize on it. We certainly did that today.”
Saturday Ace
MSU clinched the series thanks to, according to the head coach, the best pitching performance of the season, with starter Tomas Valincius the star of the show. Known by the rest of the team as “Tico,” he allowed just two runs in an otherwise ruthless performance on the mound to pick up his fifth win of the season.
“I thought the pitching tonight is the best that we’ve had,” O’Connor said after the Game Two win to clinch the series on Saturday. “Maybe match it to Tico’s outing last Saturday against Arkansas, but the combination of the two of them is the best I’ve seen this year. They were both really locked in. We needed that.”
The Bulldogs had a bit of a scare on Friday when starter Ryan McPherson left the game shaking his throwing arm with some discomfort. The Bulldogs were able to see out a 4-2 win before Valincius went 7.0 IP with a career-high 14 strikeouts. A strong cleanup job by Brendan Sweeney closed out the 7-2 win and set up the sweep on Sunday.
“We needed a deep outing out of Tico, and he gave it to us,” O’Connor continued. “I think it just shows you about a young man that, Ryder makes the error to start the fourth, Tico looks like he’s maybe not himself. He’s missing armside quite a bit, but doesn’t let it get out of hand. Gives up two runs and then, wow. The fifth, sixth and seventh inning was the best he was all night. He just always looked to me… he gets stronger as it goes on. When he did that, he competed his tail off, and the slider and consistency of it was the best I’ve seen him do.”
“In those later innings, you start getting tired, I bring out a new version of me, because you need to get through it,” Valincius said. “Once I heard the new attendance record, I was like, alright, let’s do it for these fans, and got fired up.”
14,834 fans were in attendance for the series clincher, the fifth most in program history. A slightly smaller crowd of 12,207 were there on Sunday to see the sweep.
Looking Ahead
MSU turns the page now to a big week of in-state competition, but will also continue looking for answers at pitcher on and off the field.
McPherson went in for an MRI on Sunday, per O’Connor, and the team will await the results before further evaluating their Friday starter. In the meantime, a team that was already in search of pitchers to step up will have another midweek opportunity to test their arms against one of the best in the country.
No. 12 Southern Miss travels to Starkville for a Tuesday meeting, set for 6 p.m. at The Dude. The Golden Eagles narrowly won a hotly contested meeting in Hattiesburg earlier this month by a 7-6 decision, and the Bulldogs are looking to get one back over their neighbors to the south.
Maddox Miller, who started a midweek win over Jackson State last week, was named by O’Connor as one of the unused arms out of the bullpen that he wants to get involved. It will be a difficult test for a bullpen that has struggled to end weekends and navigate pressure situations against quality opposition, and it comes just a few days before the club travels to Oxford to face Ole Miss in its next SEC series.
“Very excited,” Reed Stallman said of the USM matchup. “They come to us on Tuesday. Keep our poise, play our game, and we’ll see what happens.”
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