Mississippi State Baseball Downs Washington In College World Series Opener

OMAHA, Neb. – It’s only right that Mississippi State opens the College World Series with a thrilling finish, and the Diamond Dawgs did just that with a 1-0 walk-off win over the Washington Huskies at at TD Ameritrade Park.

MSU now holds walk-off victories in regional, super regional and world series play.

The pitcher’s duel came from the arms of State’s Ethan Small and Washington’s Joe DeMers. Small pitched pitched seven innings, and allowed no runs on four hits. He added five strikeouts. DeMers pitched 7.1 innings and allowed no runs on seven hits. He struck out two batters and walked one.

JP France pitched a perfect eighth inning, while Cole Gordon and Zach Neff (4-3) finished the ninth inning.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Hunter Stovall and Elijah MacNamee got things going with a pair of singles. After a failed bunt attempt, Luke Alexander hit an RBI-single over the right fielder’s head for another Diamond Dawg win.

State out-hit the Huskies 10-6. Stovall and Alexander both had three of MSU’s 10 hits. MacNamee and Mangum added two hits apiece.

Alex Hardy (5-3) took the loss for the Huskies after pitching one inning.

In Monday night’s winner’s bracket matchup, MSU (38-27) will face North Carolina (44-18) at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN. The winner there will be the last undefeated team on this side of the bracket.