STARKVILLE — There might have been a few, “Here we go again,” thoughts at Dudy Noble Field early in the game against Austin Peay on Tuesday, but they didn’t linger for too long.

No. 4 Mississippi State delivered a swift 16-3 run-rule win, avoiding any repeat of the 2024 matchup in which the Bulldogs blew a 10-5 lead against the Governors.

“Well, somebody had told me that, um, a couple of years ago, they had come here to Starkville and won games on a Tuesday and Wednesday in the middle of the week,” MSU head coach Brian O’Connor said. “That doesn’t surprise me. I mean, that ball club won 45 games last year in college baseball.

That’s really hard to do. There aren’t many teams that do that.”

Eleven different Bulldog players recorded a hit,  with 16 total as a team, as they put up at least two runs in five straight innings. The Governors took an early 1-0 lead after a leadoff walk, but didn’t manage any more until the seventh inning when they were already down by 15.

Fans and pundits alike were expecting big things from the Bulldog batting order, and the results so far are encouraging. It makes for a tough job in terms of selecting the order, and eventually honing in on a select group of 11-12 guys to play regularly, but it’s a job the head coach is happy to do at the moment.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” O’Connor said when asked about selection decisions. “I get to make these decisions and I get excited every morning to get up to make it, like, ‘OK, who’s in that lineup? What are the best matchups for us on that given day to give us the best chance?’”

The win saw the Bulldogs record 10 or more hits for the sixth time in the last seven games, and the fourth time this season they’ve scored double-digit runs. The win also featured three home runs from three different hitters, Aidan Teel, James Nunnallee and Ace Reese, with Teel’s being the Bulldogs’ first grand slam of 2026.

Seventeen total players made a plate appearance on Tuesday, a demonstration of the power in the batting order and who is earning a chance to get looks in it.

“I challenged our guys yesterday after an off day, which always scares you, right? That you don’t get a chance to look them in the eye, and you don’t get a chance to practice,” O’Connor added. “How are they gonna show up? And they showed some maturity today by being ready to go from the start to the finish, and that’s a great sign. I have a lot of respect for that club in the other dugout.

I know what that coach has done there in a short period of time. They’ll win a lot of games this year, but I think it showed the kind of quality of the ball club that we have, and really what they’re made of, that they come ready to play today, that they’re not looking past today for what’s on the horizon this weekend.”

This Friday, MSU begins a tough trio of games in Arlington, Texas, against Arizona State, Virginia Tech and No. 1 ranked UCLA, the team’s first games against Power 4 opponents this season. It’s a run of games that will require a lot of firepower, but the Bulldogs have shown that they have plenty of it.

“If you’ve got a chance to put somebody away, you need to do it, because who knows when your opportunities are going to come,” O’Connor said. “We talked about that in preseason, that one of the trademarks of what we want our team to be is when you have a lead, you have to extend it and put somebody away. Especially when you’re at home, it’s obviously more difficult to do on the road, but tonight showed the depth and the balance of this lineup. I’m just proud of so many guys tonight.”