In another thrilling game Mississippi State beats Indiana on Monday night, 5-4. Yet another game filled with comebacks, drama, heart palpitations, severe hand sweating, etc. It was hard to breathe at the end there, but the Bulldogs pulled it off and now they’re headed to the top of the winner’s bracket where they will have to be beaten twice by the winner of Wednesday’s Oregon St./Indiana game.

When IU’s freshman pitcher was wild in the first inning this game seemed at hand, but you have to hand it to him – he settled down and they eventually took a 3-1 lead. Trevor Fitts did pretty well, and Chad Girodo was great again except for the inning he came in (3rd), giving up a couple of hits and a couple of walks allowing them to score two runs. But after that Chad was dynamic again, striking out at least 10 batters for the third consecutive relief outing. He seemed to get better and better as the game wore on – until the 9th inning when the Hoosiers mounted a rally. They just missed a game-tying home run and with runners on 1st & 2nd with 1 out you knew all of Bulldog nation was getting a knot in their stomach once again. But the next batter grounded out scoring their 4th run, and then Johnathon Holder got a weak ground ball back to him, and despite throwing it into the ground Wes Rea was able to corral it and end the game.

How about Wes Rea? He has come up huge (no pun intended) in the 8th inning of both CWS games. This time getting a base hit to give State runners on 1st & 3rd down 3-2. Then he keeps his concentration and catches Holder’s wild throw at the end.

How about Trey Porter? After being a starter all year in 2012 he has been relegated to the bench and has had scarce at bats but he comes in during the 6th inning, nearly hits a grand slam and then in the 8th delivers a line drive into right center scoring two runs to take a 5-3 lead.

How about Demarcus Henderson? Two more hits with runners in scoring position including the game-tying RBI in the 8th. That came right after a C.T. Bradford strikeout and MSU really needed him to come through. He just keeps grinding.

This win ties State’s best run of all time in the College World Series. In 1985 the Dawgs won the first two before losing the next two. Hopefully this year is a different result. But just to put what this team has done into perspective – this is as far as we’ve ever gotten.

Last night’s game was win #50 on the year, and postseason win #10. The latter breaks an all-time MSU record set by the 1990 team.

3 more wins. Hail State!

What a game on Saturday afternoon! It had everything – back and forth, clutch hitting, drama. Maybe a little too much drama for some of our stomachs – that final out was as close as it could be.

I think baseball was meant to be played everyday, but I’m glad we had Sunday off to digest what happened against Oregon State. Now on to Indiana tonight at 7:00.

The Hoosiers got a great pitching performance out of Joey DeNato vs. Louisville as he threw a complete game shutout. So their bullpen is fresh and they’ll be throwing their best pitcher against MSU. Baseball America says this about Indiana’s starter:

Slegers (9-1, 2.13) emerged as the Big Ten pitcher of the year but struggled in the super regional against Florida State. At 6-foot-10, his downward angle makes his high-80s fastball play up.

So he’s 6′-10″ and throws in the high 80s. UPDATE: Indiana goes with freshman Will Coursen-Carr. That’s what happens when I assume. But, I mean, Slegers was the Big Ten pitcher of the year. Curious move by the IU coach.

John Cohen hasn’t said who will start for the Bulldogs, but whoever it is will need to find a way to get out of the first inning – Indiana has scored in the 1st frame 50% of the time this year. I think it’s safe to say that this will be Chad Girodo’s game come the 3rd or 4th inning…so we just need a bridge to there. The Hoosiers bats were pretty quiet on Saturday night, but they’ve been big in the Regionals and Super Regionals.

If State can win they’d be off until Friday afternoon at 2:00. If we lose, the next game would be Wednesday at 7:00. Let’s do this Dawgs.

It’s time for the College World Series!

The success the Diamond Dawgs have has brought out all kinds of stories about the team, her are a few:

Many Bulldog players actively participate in a Bible Study led by team chaplain, Matt Jolley.

Before the season, Trevor Fitts gave a power point presentation to Coach Cohen on why they should be allowed to wear facial hair. Here is the presentation.

The “Bench Mobb Anthem” now has a music video.

On the field…

Hunter Renfroe was a unanimous selection for 1st team All-American this week.  Johnathon Holder and Ross Mitchell made 2nd teams, and Adam Frazier made a third team.

An Oregon State blogger answers some questions. His pen name is AndyPanda so he must know what he’s talking about.

Here is the CWS bracket. Game 1 is Saturday at 2:00 on ESPN2, Game 2 will be on Monday at 2:00 or 7:00 (hopefully 7:00).

Karl Ravech, Kyle Peterson & Kaylee Hartung to call the MSU-Oregon State game.

— bradlocke (@bradlocke) June 12, 2013

When Mike Slive took over as SEC commissioner he made a goal to have all SEC teams off probation by 2008 – that was achieved. While several schools have been hit with probation, it hasn’t been anything too severe. In part, thanks to this commissioner who sticks up for the league in his ongoing effort to keep teams out of trouble. But when Mississippi State is having some “irregularities”, where is the commish to help us out?

In 2009, Alabama was forced to vacate 21 football victories due to the “textbook scandal”. Seven football players were involved in getting free textbooks. The total value that included 22 total athletes was $43,900. They didn’t have to give up any scholarships – nothing but erase some wins in the media guide.

In 2011, LSU went on one year of probation for an assistant coach providing transportation and housing for a player…and then covering it up. They only lost two scholarships and a 10% reduction in official visits. Around the same time Georgia Tech was forced to give up their 2009 ACC Championship for giving a player $300. Think Mike Slive doesn’t have power?

Tennessee lives in a state of secondary violations but they create self-imposed probationary periods that really mean nothing.

Everyone in the SEC knows Auburn was cheating, and probably still is cheating. Everyone outside of southeast Alabama knows Cam Newton got paid.

If Ole Miss ain’t cheatin’ then I’m a monkey’s uncle.

Mike Slive will stick his neck out for some programs, but not so much for others. Two years probation, 4 scholarships, reduction in official visits and a 1.5 year loss of eligibility for Will Redmond over a $2K “discount” and a couple hundred dollars?

Dawg pile

Mississippi State is headed to the College World Series for the 9th time after beating Virginia 6-5 Monday afternoon, sweeping the Super Regional.

Johnathon Holder came in after Hunter Renfroe came around to score to make it 6-3 and worked a perfect 8th before things got shaky. The stikezone was all over the place in the 9th inning and there were a couple of defensive miscues but the Bulldogs survived it keeping UVA at bay – the tying and go-ahead runs were in scoring position when the last out was recorded.

THE DIAMOND DAWGS ARE BACK!

Play was suspended in the bottom of the 7th inning on Sunday night, and will resume on Monday at 3:00 central with MSU leading the game 5-3 and the series 1-0.

Adam Fraizer has been running circles around UVA as he is 8 for 10 so far. Wes Rea had the big blow in Game 2 so far with his mammoth home run into the left field pine trees – he is 4 for 7 in Charlottesville.

Everyone seems to be hitting in this series, and the pitching hasn’t been bad either, especially from the bullpen…again. Ross Mitchell was great in Game 1 and Chad Girodo was dominant in long relief yet again.

Two years ago the Bulldogs had a 6-4 lead on Florida with 9 outs to go to advance to Omaha but couldn’t close the deal. This time, however, MSU has a fresh closer in Johnathon Holder ready to take the hill.

There is a lot of rain in the forecast so I’m not sure if it will start on time, but the goal is 3:00 CST on ESPN2. When play picks up Hunter Renfroe will be at the plate with an 0-2 count, no outs.

Now we know the punishment for the wrongdoings of a rogue booster involving the recruitment of Will Redmond. It’s basically minimal other than Redmond losing a year of eligibility and 5 games in 2013.

Redmond will also have to pay back over $2,000 in impermissible benefits, which includes $2,000 for a “discount” on a car. I’ll get to that in another part of this series, but for now I will focus on how and why this was reported last August.

Without a doubt I questioned the validity of this story by Matthew Stevens. As it turns out the information was somewhat accurate. Although he clearly painted MSU in a bad light insinuating we bought him the car. Still, it should have never seen the light of day and I am calling for the MSU athletic department to black ball the Columbus Dispatch until Stevens is removed.

Stevens wrote the article and he also went on Paul Finebaum to discuss it. While no one else ever reported this, he stood by it. This brought undo attention to MSU. And once this information is leaked, other schools want blood. I don’t care if the info was accurate or not, we should not cater to BEAT reporters who write things against us. Do you think any other SEC school would put up with this? These reporters should be writing feature stories, presenting stats and doing interviews. We don’t need them reporting news against us.

Where did Stevens get his info? No one else had it. Was MSU betrayed by someone who they believed was one of their own?

I’ll throw these facts out there regarding BulldawgJunction founder Michael Wardlaw and Matt Stevens, you can see if there are any dots to be connected…

1. Bulldawg Junction was a struggling website. They offered “lifetime memberships” for relatively small fees. Wardlaw screwed a lot of people over prior to this story and many had abandoned his website.
2. In the 3 weeks prior to the announcement of a “recruiting irregularity” by MSU, Wardlaw tweeted 15 times about practically giving away “lifetime memberships” – from $60, down to $50, $30 and at times $25.
3. Wardlaw and Stevens were well acquainted – Stevens regularly appeared on a radio show with Stevens prior to this, and shortly after this story broke Wardlaw joined forces with Stevens on his Bulldog Sports Radio Show, Full Court Press, which was canceled soon after.
4. Bulldawg Junction is like GenesPage or Bulldawgs247 – it is run by MSU people. He was not a pure and objective beat reporter.
5. Wardlaw still created a storm by presenting somewhat factual information on HeadtoHead Radio.
6. Wardlaw continued to promote his “lifetime memberships” or “yearly memberships” for as low as $15. A MSU guy going on H2H to speak out about things that are that negative with regards to the program was certainly questionable to the fan base, but perhaps people would buy his memberships since he had the inside scoop.
7. Bulldawg Junction changes its name to The Dawg Walk in October. After the football season Wardlaw and his website have vanished.

I’ve had several e-mails, comments and tweets inquiring about Elite Dawgs, so on behalf of Coach 34, I will say that the site should be back up and running shortly. There was a major router failure which caused the site to go down temporarily. For more updates, be sure to follow Elite Dawgs on twitter, @EliteDawgs.

UPDATE: The site is back, check it out.

Mississippi State beat Central Arkansas on Monday night 6-1 to win the Starkville Regional and advance to the Super Regional at Virginia. Ben Bracewell started but senior Chad Girodo was the star of the show pitching 6.2 innings to finish out the ball game.

There were over 8K there to see it, and over the four games MSU played in the Regional the average attendance was over 10,000. Well done State baseball fans once again.

The big offensive stars came through when we needed them the most: Adam Frazier was 2 for 5 with 2 RBI and Hunter Renfroe was 3 for 4 with 2 RBI.

Central Arkansas was the one making the mistakes in this one as they committed 3 errors which lead to a couple of unearned runs in the first two innings. Sam Frost’s great defensive grab in the top of the 1st saved a run and may have changed the complexion of the game.

The Bulldogs will now move on to Charlottesville, Virginia where the Cavaliers await. Game 1 will be played on Saturday at noon CST on ESPN2. Game 2 will be Sunday at 6 pm on ESPNU, and Game 3 if necessary will be played Monday at 3 pm on ESPN2.

If you think you can make it up to Virginia, here is how you can order tickets.

HAIL STATE!