It has been a full decade since Mississippi State lost the season series to its biggest rival, and the Bulldogs, playing arguably their best baseball of the season right now, welcome No. 24 Ole Miss to Dudy Noble Field this weekend at a critical time.
MSU (29-19, 10-14 Southeastern Conference) has won four straight games under interim head coach Justin Parker, including a home sweep over Kentucky. That vaulted the Bulldogs up to 35th in the latest RPI, putting them in good shape to return to the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels (33-15, 13-11) are 16th in the RPI, so these three games will be MSU’s final Quadrant 1 opportunities of the regular season.
A lot has changed in the two and a half weeks since the Bulldogs met Ole Miss for the Governor’s Cup in Pearl. MSU coughed up two multi-run leads in that game, giving up a game-tying home run in the ninth inning to Austin Fawley before losing in the 10th on Will Furniss’ walk-off single. Ole Miss parlayed that win into a series victory over a top-10 Vanderbilt team, but lost two out of three last weekend at Oklahoma.
Like the Bulldogs, the Rebels fell on some hard times after their national championship this decade, missing the NCAA Tournament each of the last two years. But Ole Miss stuck with head coach Mike Bianco, who has steered his team back into the top half of the SEC this season and helped give the Rebels a chance to host a regional.
Fawley leads Ole Miss in the power department with 15 homers, including nine in his last 14 games. Luke Hill and Mitchell Sanford also each have an OPS above 1.000, with Isaac Humphrey just short of that mark at .992. Judd Utermark and Will Furniss help make this lineup dangerous with few breaks for opposing pitching staffs.
The Rebels have used the same three starting pitchers in all eight of their SEC series, with mixed results. Left-hander Hunter Elliott is the ace after missing all of 2024 and most of 2023 with elbow injuries, and he is averaging more than five innings per start in conference play. Riley Maddox and Mason Nichols have struggled against SEC hitters and do not often pitch deep into games.
Ole Miss does have a solid late-inning relief corps, led by Mason Morris and Connor Spencer. Bianco’s team has played a lot of close games in conference play, with 10 SEC games decided by one or two runs.
MSU lost two out of three in Oxford last April, but won the Governor’s Cup and beat the Rebels in the opening round of the SEC Tournament to win the season series overall. Even with the Governor’s Cup loss this year, the Bulldogs are 24-9 against Ole Miss since the start of the 2016 season.
In order to keep that in-state dominance going, MSU will need to follow the same formula that worked against the Wildcats. The Bulldogs played mostly clean defense with a few sparkling plays, got runners on base early in innings and took advantage of scoring opportunities, and locked things down late with excellent bullpen performances from pitchers like Ben Davis, Stone Simmons, Ryan McPherson, Nate Williams and Luke Dotson.
With one final midweek game against North Alabama and then a series at Missouri, which is winless in SEC play, remaining after this weekend, this series is the Bulldogs’ last chance to earn more key wins and solidify their postseason resume before they head to Hoover, Alabama, for the conference tournament.
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