Mississippi State baseball lived to see another game. Facing elimination Sunday morning, the Diamond Dawgs grinded out a 3-2 win against the Northeastern Huskies to reach the Tallahassee Regional finals.
Bulldog pitching staff came to play with the season on the line
Justin Parker turned to Evan Siary to keep Mississippi State's season going, and he turned in an outstanding performance. Through 4.1 innings, the right-hander had a perfect game going. A pair of 5th-inning singles would breakout the perfect day and plate a run, but it was a lights out day for junior. In 6.0 innings, he struck out nine with three hits, two runs, and no walks.
Reliever Stone Simmons was outstanding as well. After some two-out free passes by Nate Williams plated a run for the Huskies to bring them within one, Simmons stepped in to a bases-loaded situation and ended the inning with a strikeout. He would close out the game, surrendering just one hit and one walk to get the save for MSU.
Mississippi State wasted a lot of opportunities at the plate
Truthfully, this game should not have been this close. The Bulldogs bats wasted several chases at breaking this game open and pulling away from Northeastern. They started hot, plating two runs in the first. They continued getting runners on base for the remainder of the game. The issue was bringing them home.
The Bulldogs racked up 13 hits and had a pair of walks, but they left 11 runners on base. In the 6th, they had the bases loaded with no outs and failed to score. In the 8th, they didn't score despite having runners on the corners with no outs. State was 2-12 with runners in scoring position, and despite the win, that's not good enough. It's a great thing MSU's pitching was as strong as it was because otherwise, their offensive production wouldn't have been enough to stay alive.
Diamond Dawgs need two-straight wins vs Florida State
Now in the regional finals, Mississippi State will need to defeat Florida State in consecutive days if they're going to advance to a super regional. The Diamond Dawgs will turn to typical Sunday starter Karson Ligon (6-5, 5.81 ERA) while lefty Wes Mendes (6-2, 4.93 ERA) takes the mound for FSU. State will need a much better all around effort than they showed Saturday against the 'Noles if they're going to force a winner-take-all game on Monday. The Bulldogs rematch with FSU at 5:00 PM CT.