'Blood in the water': How Mississippi State upended Ole Miss with solid seventh inning

OXFORD – Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis should have been boisterous and elated. His No. 6 Mississippi State Bulldogs had just beaten No. 14 Ole Miss, 8-5, in a series-clinching victory over the Bulldogs’ most bitter rival.

Instead, Lemonis was hoarse and exhausted.

He took an early flight from Oxford to Columbia, South Carolina, on Saturday morning to attend his daughter’s college graduation.

His Bulldogs beat Ole Miss, 2-0, just before the clock struck midnight the night before. Roughly 18 hours later, the Dogs and Rebs were set to play the second game of their series at Swayze Field. Lemonis planned his day out to where he could be at both the graduation and the baseball game.

His daughter was the 1,245th person to hear her name called during the commencement ceremony. Anyone who has been to a graduation event at a large high school or college knows it probably took roughly three hours for Lemonis to see his daughter have her moment.

That moment included a kiss blown her father’s way. Then he rushed out of there as quickly as he could. He had his own business to attend to. He got back to Oxford 30 minutes before a 6:02 first pitch from Ole Miss left-handed freshman Doug Nikhazy.

Lemonis settled in at his perch in the dugout, but standing there was probably much more uncomfortable as sitting at the graduation a few hours earlier. Ole Miss jumped all over MSU freshman pitcher J.T. Ginn in the bottom of the first inning to take a 2-0 lead.

Though State later tied the game at two apiece in the fourth, it took just about the same amount of time for Lemonis to watch his team finally take a lead as it did for him to watch his daughter receive her diploma. Two hours and 49 minutes after Nikhazy first threw to home plate, Mississippi State went ahead of Ole Miss for the first time all night.

Trailing 4-2 in the seventh, Mississippi State brought the bottom third of its batting order to the plate against Ole Miss reliever Austin Miller, who brought a team-best 2.09 ERA into the game. Junior catcher Dustin Skelton doubled, and so did junior designated hitter Gunner Halter. That made it 4-3.

Senior third baseman Marshall walked to bring up senior center fielder Jake Mangum, who was 0-for-3 on the night. His hitting streak against Ole Miss – which has lasted the entirety of his collegiate career – was at stake. So was the game. Mangum delivered with an RBI single to tie the game at four-all.

“Personally, I had a rough night at the plate early on starting 0-for-3,” Mangum said. “But other guys picked us up… They threw the early punches, but we didn’t back down.”

Ole Miss turned to red-shirt Parker Carracci, and he issued a walk to MSU sophomore shortstop Jordan Westburg. Sophomore first baseman Tanner Allen delivered with a 2-run single to give Mississippi State a 6-4 lead. The first six batters State sent to the plate all got on base, and it turned the game on its head. Sophomore left fielder Rowdey Jordan had what Lemonis called the “separator” when he smacked another two-run single to left to give State an 8-4 advantage.

For a while, it felt like all Ole Miss needed was a separator of its own. The Rebels owned the lead for majority of the night, but all Mississippi State needed was one big inning to completely alter the complexion of the game and ultimately the series.

“That’s how we play,” Jordan said. “We stay to our approach the whole game… It just says how much we compete. We got guys working at-bats, getting down in the hole 0-2 and just like that it’s a five, six-pitch at-bat. Just grinding at-bats out.”

Gilbert managed to reach base four times without recording a true at-bat. He was hit by a pitch two times and drew a walks the hard way two times as well. Westburg was the only other Bulldog to not get a hit, but he still had what Mangum called the “at-bat of the night.” He drew a bases-loaded walk in the third inning that got the Bulldogs on the board and cut the Rebels’ 2-0 lead in half.

“It kind of settled us in,” Mangum said. “Like, ‘Hey, we’re going to be all right.’ He battled that at-bat, and that’s all we did all night. They threw the early punches, but we didn’t back down.”

Mangum and Jordan believe the team is never out of a ballgame with the way the hitters approach each and every at-bat. Ole Miss was previously 25-0 when taking a lead into the seventh inning. The Bulldogs blew that number up with a six-run seventh. 

Now, Mangum said Mississippi State (41-10, 17-9 SEC) smells “blood in the water.” The Bulldogs go for a series sweep of Ole Miss (32-9, 15-11 SEC) on Sunday at noon.

Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!