Amani Larry's Senior Day home runs, Cijntje's dominant outing lead State to series win
Mississippi State played with fire in Thursday’s series opener with Missouri as the Bulldogs couldn’t put together a big inning offensively but got enough pitching to get the win.
The first three innings followed a similar script as State and Mizzou were tied at 1-1, but the Bulldog bats came alive. State scored six runs total in the fourth and fifth innings and got another great start from Jurrangelo Cijntje as the Bulldogs took the series with an 8-2 victory on Friday.
“It’s huge to be able to play some freer baseball,” head coach Chris Lemonis said. “I just thought we strung a lot of bats together in a row and that was giving us a little bit of freedom to play and relax and have fun.”
Bulldogs come through in middle innings
The Bulldogs followed up a solo home run from the Tigers’ Trevor Austin in the fourth by getting a Logan Kohler RBI single and Joe Powell sacrifice fly to push the lead to 3-1. After getting an RBI double from Dakota Jordan in the fifth, Amani Larry came up with two on and two out and launched a home run to left field to blow the game open at 7-1.
Larry would come through again in the eighth inning with a solo home run. It was the third homer of the weekend for the senior who finished 3-for-4 with four RBI and two homers in game two.
“It was pretty awesome,” Larry said of his Senior Day. “I think it’s awesome when you realize that I’m playing in the Dude. Not everybody gets to do that. Having a coach that believes in you is the most important thing. When you meet a coach, you can really tell that he cares about his players. That builds a lot of confidence in your players.”
On top of the fact that the offense would come alive, State got a fantastic start out of Jurrangelo Cijntje. The sophomore from Curacao tied a career high with 7.0 innings while giving up just three hits, two runs and one walk and he struck out nine batters.
Like Khal Stephen the night before, all of the damage in the game came off of solo home runs. Stephen gave up three solo homers on Thursday night while Cijntje (8-1) surrendered two long balls. There would be only one more hit off of him the rest of the game.
“Sometimes later in the game you’ll hang a breaking ball or something. You’ve just got to keep your composure and stay locked in and don’t let that determine your outing,” Cijntje said of his game. “I added that as fuel so I could keep going. (Friday) might be my last regular season game playing in college baseball. I didn’t take that for granted and I gave it my all on the field.”
Brooks Auger came in and pitched the final 2.0 innings of the game as he gave up two hits, walked a batter and struck out one.
At the plate, State had a much better day than Thursday as the Bulldogs doubled the hits and the runs from game one. The Bulldogs had 10 hits with Larry and Jordan leading the way going 3-for-4. Jordan had two doubles and drove in a run.
Up Next
The Bulldogs (36-18, 17-12 SEC) can lock up the No. 5 seed in the SEC Tournament with a win on Saturday at 2 p.m. A victory could also give State a Regional hosting spot, though that won’t be determined for over another week.
Lemonis doesn’t want to leave that decision in the balance as he hopes his team will take care of business and leave no doubt for the committee.
“We talked that it’s the last game of the season and it’s an important one. We’re still playing for seeding, for hosting, for all those types of things,” Lemonis said. “They have some of their better arms left. They’re going to try to come out and play good and we have to take it from them. It’s just so hard when you sweep, but they’re locked in. They know how big tomorrow’s game is and they’ll be ready to go.”
