Chance homer, strike-throwing leads Diamond Dawgs to season-opening win

At times, Friday night felt like just another Mississippi State baseball game from the last two seasons.

The Diamond Dawgs have had their share of plays over the last couple of seasons where they just didn’t do enough of the little things. A defensive miscue here, a strikeout there and the Bulldogs were in trouble in the season opener against Air Force.

One big swing from Bryce Chance changed that, however, as his two-run home run in the seventh got the Bulldogs in business and the bullpen closed the door from there. A 8-4 win got the Diamond Dawgs on the right track to start the season and opened the weekend with a victory.

State (1-0) did it in front of the largest opening day crowd in the history of the program at 11,216.

The biggest takeaway from the opening game should be the Diamond Dawg pitching staff.

Pitching staff pounds the zone in Parker’s debut

Justin Parker’s debut as pitching coach was an impressive one as he had four different pitchers consistently pounding the strike zone. A team that had one of the worst pitching seasons in school history a year ago, head coach Chris Lemonis went to get Parker from South Carolina in the offseason to fix the team’s issues.

Nate Dohm, Evan Siary, Tyler Davis and Cam Schuelke combined to throw 120 pitches with 96 of those going for strikes. The bullpen trio of Siary, Davis and Schuelke all pitched without allowing a walk and threw just eight balls in 54 pitches.

“Evan held it together there for a couple of innings, and I thought we won the game with TD and (Schuelke) there at the end,” coach Chris Lemonis said. “I mean, you look up at the scoreboard and we scored five in the last three (innings) and they scored none. It was a really tight game. That’s a good team. They’ve got some really good hitters in that lineup.”

It was the third career start for Dohm as he spent most of last season out of the bullpen. He struggled to keep the first batter of an inning off the basepaths, but the junior right hander limited damage every time.

Limited to under 75 pitches in the game, Dohm threw 66 total and pitched 4.0 innings, gave up six hits, one earned run, two walks and struck out four. Despite the hits, he consistently pitched his way out of it.

The first inning saw Dohm surrender three hits in the frame and give up a run but leave two runners stranded. He gave up a leadoff double that turned into three bases in the third inning but would leave that man there with three-straight outs.

In the meantime, there wasn’t much help for the starter. State’s hitters got two runs scratched across in the first inning as Bryce Chance and Memphis transfer Logan Kohler each had one-out singles to score runs. That would be the last time in several innings that the team would get anything going.

Falcon starter Seungmin Shim kept the Diamond Dawgs off balance from the left side and threw 5.0 innings scattering five hits, three runs, two earned runs, two walks and seven strikeouts. From the second to the fourth inning, Shim didn’t give up a hit or a run and had walked just one batter with five strikeouts.

When Siary hit the mound to replace Dohm, Air Force would strike. Jay Thomason broke the 2-2 tie with a solo home run to left field and Chris Stallings followed with a two-out double for another run giving the Falcons a 4-2 lead.

Dakota Jordan finally got things going for State in the bottom of the inning with a laser home run to centerfield cutting the lead to 4-3, and Chance would seize the momentum in the seventh. With one out and a runner on base, the sophomore outfielder rectified a base running error earlier in the game by dropping a home run over the wall in left center to give State a lead.

“I’m trying to be better this year at flushing things that’s happened before,” Chance said. “I got ahead in the count, he hung a breaking ball for me and it came to life there. It was fun. I knew when that happened, everybody could loosen up.”

Connor Hujsak kept the rally going in the inning as he tripled to the gap in right center and it was 6-4 with State on top. MSU got two more runs in the eighth inning as Amani Larry had a pop fly double fall in foul territory and Hunter Hines grounded home a run.

The offense coming alive was a big development for State, but MSU’s bullpen was a revelation and a hopeful return to normalcy. Tyler Davis and JUCO All-American Cam Schuelke finished the last 3.0 innings with just one hit surrendered, no runs, no walks and four strikeouts. Davis earned the win with Schuelke getting a save in his first-career game.

Siary also rebounded well with a strong second frame.

One bit of bad news that came out of the evening was the loss of Kohler at third base. Kohler dove to tag a defender on a play at third in the fourth inning and left the game in a tremendous amount of pain. Lemonis said postgame he had no update on his status. Nate Chester filled his roll and walked with a run scored.

Up Next

State will try to take the series on Saturday as the Diamond Dawgs will host first pitch at 4 p.m. following MSU’s basketball game against Arkansas at Humphrey Coliseum. Purdue transfer Khal Stephen will be on the mound.