Mississippi State (19-7-1, 5-2) took sole possession of the lead in the SEC West race with tonight's 3-1 win over Ole Miss (20-6, 2-5 SEC).
Both teams had strong pitching performances on the evening, but Dakota Hudson's complete game outing featuring 11 strikeouts while only surrendering four hits and one unearned run really stood out tonight. With the win, Hudson moves to 4-1 on the year and 3-0 in his last four outings. Hudson hurled 113 pitches in the nine innings against 29 batters equaling out to 12.56 pitches per inning and 3.9 pitches per batter faced.
The one run given up by the Bulldogs came in the first inning after Dakota Hudson struggled some, showing that he is indeed mortal. Hitting the first batter he faced with a pitch to start the game on an 0-1 count wasn't ideal. A throwing error on the next batter to put runners at the corners wasn't any better. Following both of those was a single into right field with no outs to give Ole Miss their sole lead of the night.
Mississippi State would strike back in the bottom half thanks to a two out RBI single from Reid Humphreys that would bring Jake Mangum home from second base which would tie the game up at 1-1.
MSU would go on to take a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning thanks to another RBI single from Humphreys that would score Mangum, again. State would then go on to earn the final run of the evening in the seventh thanks to a throwin error in a failed pickoff attempt where Jacob Robson advanced from first base to home, setting up the final score at 3-1.
Mississippi State will look to take game two and the series tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 with Austin Sexton taking the mound for the maroon and white.
PS, if you want to see the video of Robson running very, very fast, here you go
VIDEO | @JakeRobson7 is so fast he scored from first on a failed pickoff attempt. #SCtop10 #HailStatehttps://t.co/JtposuIzvt
— MSU Baseball (@HailStateBB) April 2, 2016
PPS This is also a reminder that we are opening recruiting to anyone and everyone named Dakota and Scott Stricklin approves (this is my best tweet ever please appreciate it thank you)
Send all of your children named Dakota to Starkville please
— FWtCT (@mstatesports) April 2, 2016
Co-sign https://t.co/89J6DccVxE
— Scott Stricklin (@stricklinMSU) April 2, 2016