State blows another lead, drops Governor's Cup 8-7 to No. 23 Ole Miss
What once appeared to be a strength for Mississippi State has become a massive weakness in the last four games.
The Bulldog bullpen blew up twice against Florida in a series loss last weekend and they were back on Tuesday night against No. 23 Ole Miss in the Governor’s Cup. Twice State pitchers blew a multiple run lead with the last one a game-tying two-run home run in the ninth.
Ole Miss used that two-run shot to fuel it in a 8-7 win in 10 innings. It was the first win for the Rebels in the Governor’s Cup game since 2022 and broke up a string of six wins in the last seven tries by the Bulldogs.
Austin Fawley hit a two-run homer off of Ryan McPherson with one out in the ninth inning to tie the game up at 7-7. The Rebels would come through in the 10th with a two-out single from Will Furniss after two balls in the dirt allowed the runner to move into position for the win.
“They got some big hits in those situations. Ryan McPherson was really good and they got big swings off of him,” coach Chris Lemonis said. “Their guy really made a difference.”
The Bulldogs twice had a multi-run lead in the game. State got out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a sacrifice fly from Ace Reese. In the third inning, MSU got two more runs with an RBI single from Gehrig Frei and a wild pitch scored another for a 3-0 advantage.
Ole Miss would make its run back into the game with two runs coming across in the fourth. In the fifth inning, things started to fall apart a bit for Jacob Pruitt and the State defense.
A leadoff hit batter turned into a two-run home run from Furniss. After a two-out triple, a ground ball to Reese went by his glove and scored another and the Rebels suddenly led 5-3.
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MSU immediately battled back. With the bases loaded and one down, Bryce Chance would single home two games to tie things up. Ross Highfill’s hard hit ball to second with two outs would lead to two more and it was back in favor of the Bulldogs at 7-5.
McPherson would get State through the next 3.1 innings of the game with a sharp performance and scoreless baseball, but he couldn’t finish it. The freshman gave up five hits, two runs and no walks and struck out six batters. He followed up a 3.1 inning start from Noah Sullivan where he left with the lead after giving up four hits, two runs and a walk. Pruitt gave up three hits, two runs with two walks and three strikeouts in 1.2 innings.
Luke Dotson got the loss after giving up two hits in the final inning.
State’s offense struck out 13 times in the game with four coming from Hunter Hines and three from Noah Sullivan. Frei was 2-for-5 with an RBI and Highfill finished 2-for-4 with a double and RBI. Chance drove in a team-high two RBI.
The Diamond Dawgs (24-17, 6-12 SEC) now have to try to bounce back by playing No. 12 Auburn on the road on the weekend.
“You’ve got to move on to the next one,” Lemonis said. “It’s not one where you scald your guys after the game. They left it all between the lines and it was a great college baseball game.”
