Diamond Dawg season comes to an end in Tallahassee with 5-2 loss to Florida State

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – With its backs against the wall and needing two wins in two days to advance to a Super Regional, Mississippi State had six outs to get to check one of those off the list.

The Diamond Dawgs had played with fire all game long against the mashing Florida State offense, but pitchers Karson Ligon and Luke Dotson had survived seven innings of action. That ended in the seventh.

FSU tied the game on a two-run home run that frame and the Seminoles would break it open in the ninth for a 5-2 victory that sent them to a Super Regional. The Bulldogs fell just short of forcing a decisive final game after beating Northeastern 3-2 earlier in the day.

“I thought our guys were tough as nails today,” interim head coach Justin Parker said. “We started early in the morning and had a quick turnaround We came up short obviously, but I’m proud of the effort and love every one of these guys. Sometimes you end up on the other end of it, but big-time warrior efforts from guys that were on fumes a little bit. We came up short to a really good ball club.”

While the Bulldogs held the Noles scoreless for seven innings, almost all of those innings were stressful. Karson Ligon had to throw 100 pitches to get through 4.0 innings and gave up five walks and four hits. In his final three innings, Ligon had runners living on the bases but constantly worked out of it as he left 10 runners stranded.

“I think we all knew that today could be our last game as a team,” Ligon said. “We were all just fighting as hard as we could to do what we could for the team.”

Luke Dotson did the same behind him for the first 2.0 innings but his seventh ended that. After giving up a leadoff double to Myles Bailey, Dotson gave up a two-run home run that would tie the game at 2-2.

FSU would unravel the Bulldogs the next inning as Dotson gave up a leadoff walk and was lifted for Ryan McPherson. Pitching in his second day in a row, the freshman gave up two hits and a walk as the Noles would get the lead and take the 5-2 victory.

Dotson finished the game with 3.0 innings, four hits, three runs, a walk and seven strikeouts. State would walk seven batters in the game and 21 total in the two games against the Noles.

At the plate, MSU faced another dominant lefty and had similar results. Former Ole Miss pitcher Wes Mendes never felt pressure despite having a 2-0 deficit for the first seven frames. He gave up a solo home run on the first pitch of the game to Gehrig Frei and another to Joe Powell in the fifth, but Mendes pitched 8.0 innings, gave up five hits, two runs, two walks and struck out nine.

A day after dominant lefty Jamie Arnold struck out 13 batters and his win, Mendes followed.

“I thought he was really impressive,” Parker said of Mendes. “Gehrig Frei did a great job first pitch of the game. I’m throwing first-pitch fastball every time and so is everybody else and he did a really nice job of rebounding. He threw a ton of pitches for strikes, mixed, elevated his fastball. It’s a really good arm. He held his velocity. It felt like he fed off the crowd, he managed in and out of jams. Just a really impressive start in a big game.”

The Bulldogs (36-23) finished the season and quickly turned to the future on Sunday night. News broke less than an hour after the game that Brian O’Connor would be the next head coach at MSU and will be announced in Starkville on Thursday at 7 p.m. inside Dudy Noble Field.

For now, Parker and his team focused on the run that they’ve had and the bond created as a team together.

“I just credit these kids. I love these kids and would do anything for them. The relationships and the work… I told them I don’t even care how it goes, I’m just so proud of them and there’s not one more I’d rather go to battle with,” Parker said. “Whether we’re in this situation or not, or coaching search or not or winning or not, that’s what I do it for. I’m just so proud of them. These guys as close as it gets and it’s just hard to see us finish up like that.”