MSU News and Notes | Monday, May 21, 2012

Lots to discuss with an exciting weekend of baseball this past weekend and lots ahead this week here at FWTCT. Here are your news and notes for Monday, May 21, 2012.

• I certainly felt we would compete with the Kentucky Wildcats this weekend, but I never expected THAT. State's pitching staff again proved that it is the best in the SEC as a unit by completely shutting down the Wildcat offense for a total of 7 runs on the weekend. Saturday was about as perfect as you could finish off a sweep, as State ground out runs in all sorts of ways (bloop singles, squeeze plays, etc.) en route to defeating Kentucky 11-3 and completing the weekend brooming. Outstanding work by the whole team, and it was especially nice to see sluggers Daryl Norris and Wes Rea begin to come out of their hitting funks this weekend.

• As a result of State's weekend sweep and Ole Miss' complete disaster of a series in Nashville, State obtained the #7 seed in this upcoming week's SEC Tournament, which kicks off Tuesday. The Bulldogs will first take on Arkansas, a team they narrowly lost a series too earlier in the season in Starkville. Arkansas will certainly be a tough task for State, but the way the Bulldogs have played as of late is certainly encouraging if you're a fellow State fan. Want to know what's weird though if we do, in fact, defeat Arkansas? We'll then have to root for Ole Miss. Why in the hell would we ever do that, you ask? Well, in the new 10 team formatted SEC Tourney, we have to root for them so that we can get a bye. The #9 seed Ole Miss, who is matched up with the #4 seed Kentucky in our portion of the bracket, would have to beat the Wildcats so that State plays Thursday instead of Wednesday. Why, you ask? Well, because the higher seed that wins our matchup and the OM-UK matchup gets the Wednesday bye, while the lower seed to advance Tuesday has to face the #1 seeded LSU Tigers Wednesday. A bye Wednesday would also mean State would have Chris Stratton on a full week's rest waiting to go, which is an obvious advantage. Still, first things first State will have to take down a very good Arkansas team on Tuesday if they have any hope of getting a championship (or hosting spot? more on that later).
• Freshman Jacob Lindgren was tabbed as the SEC Freshman of the Week for his relief performance in Sunday's 11-3 victory over Kentucky in the series finale. Lindgren was lights out in relief, allowing just one run and three hits in 5 and 1/3 innings relief while fanning a season-high seven Wildcats. Kudos to young Jacob, we will definitely need more performances out of him like that if we are to make a deep tourney run.
• Our Greatest Games series continues, and now you can find all the matchups for your viewing and voting pleasure on the right side of our home page. Make sure to vote for all the first round matchups, and voting closes this Wednesday at noon!
• Pretty excited to announce to you, our faithful readership, that we will be starting another fun series this Thursday, May 24th. Thursday marks 100 days until the 2012 football season kicks off, and each day from then on till the day we face Jackson State we here at FWTCT will bring you one interesting fact a day about MSU football. Each day's fact will have be in relation to the # of days there are left until the season. Aren't we clever? Well, at least our moms think we are. Look for that series to kick off Thursday with Day 100.
  
• Chris Stratton was named a semi-finalist for the Dick Howser award over the weekend. The award is given yearly by the Collegiate Baseball Writers Association to the most outstanding player in college baseball. Strat is one of 35 finalists. The award is announced on June 15th during the College World Series.
• State baseball gained a commitment Friday from Evangelical Christian (Tenn.) Jr. 1B Brett Rooker ($ link). Rooker claimed offers from Tennessee and Southern Miss, among others.
• So our basketball program is recruiting a center named Mango Mathing ($ link). This coupled with Sidney's "Hawaiian Punch" officially makes us the fruitest college program out there (PUN DEFINITELY INTENDED).

...and I'm spent. Go out and make it an outstanding Monday, Bulldogs.

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