Bednar strikes out 15 in No. 7 Mississippi State’s 2-1 win over No. 2 Texas in CWS opener

OMAHA, Neb. — No. 7 overall seed Mississippi State (46-16) held on for a 2-1 win over No. 2 national seed Texas (47-16) on Sunday night in its first game of the College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park.

MSU sophomore starting pitcher Will Bednar (8-1) struck out 15 batters in six innings of work. He surrendered just one hit and one walk.

Sophomore closer Landon Sims tossed the final three innings and allowed one run on three hits with six strikeouts to earn his 11th save.

Bednar and Sims’ 21 combined strikeouts set a CWS team record.

Texas redshirt sophomore starting pitcher Ty Madden (7-5) got the loss after allowing two runs on four hits in seven innings pitched. He struck out 10 batters and walked two.

The ballgame was scoreless through three innings before the Bulldogs took a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning. Sophomore Kamren James drew a leadoff walk and made his way to third on junior Luke Hancock’s single to right-center field. A sacrifice fly from graduate student Scotty Dubrule made it 1-0 before junior Brad Cumbest hit an RBI triple down the right-field line.

The Longhorns were held scoreless until the bottom of the ninth inning when redshirt senior Mike Antico homered to right-center to make it 2-1.

Sims struck out the next batter and got a groundout after that before Texas made things interesting. Redshirt sophomore Ivan Melendez singled to right field before redshirt junior Cam Williams hit a single to center field to put runners on the corners. However, redshirt freshman Douglas Hodo III grounded out to end the game.

The Bulldogs will continue their CWS run on Tuesday against Virginia at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.