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Bats come alive as No. 3 Diamond Dawgs take down Tulane late in 11-7 win

3rupauk8_400x400by: Robbie Faulk03/11/26RobbieFaulkOn3

For most of the ball game on Tuesday, No. 3 Mississippi State looked destined to join most of the rest of the SEC with a head-scratching midweek loss.

 Playing down in Biloxi at the Hancock Whitney Classic, the Diamond Dawgs fell behind 7-2 in the seventh inning and showed little signs of life. The seventh inning changed all of that in a hurry.

Behind a seven-run frame, State persevered through a sluggish start in the game and stormed back to take a 10-7 win over Tulane. It was just what State needed heading into SEC play.

The Bulldogs did it in front of the second-largest crowd in the history of Keesler Federal Park. The home of the Biloxi Shuckers saw the largest crowd since 2015 as 6,112 fans packed into the stadium.

Prior to the bottom of the seventh, MSU’s offense had struck out 11 times and manufactured just five hits. Tulane was commanding the State lineup and the Green Wave had some big hits along the way that allowed them to get a lead and build on it in the later innings.

As has been the case through the first 17 games, however, the Bulldog offense was inevitable.

Trailing 7-2 in the seventh, State got singles from Andrew Raymond and Vytas Valincius to lead off the frame and Drew Wyers walked with one out to load up the bases for Ace Reese. After getting ahead 3-0, Reese faced a full count that would bring a pressure-packed 3-2 pitch. Reese delivered in a big way with an opposite field grand slam and the ice was officially broken for the Bulldogs.

With the lead suddenly down to 7-6 with that one swing, the Bulldogs kept the pressure on the Green Wave. Noah Sullivan would reach on a throwing error and came around to score on Reed Stallman’s RBI single. Gehrig Fre followed that with an RBI double and the Bulldogs added one more on Chone James’ RBI single. The dust settled with State scoring seven runs on six hits with two errors from the Tulane defense and it was a 9-7 lead.

After a shutdown inning from Chris Billingsley, State wanted insurance in the eighth. Drew Wyers would score a leadoff hit batter that was Bryce Chance. With two outs, Frei would single home another run to make it 11-7.

Offense comes alive again for Diamond Dawgs

In a game where the Bulldogs had struggled to get anything going offensively, State would get seven hits in the last two innings and 12 in the game. Despite 14 strikeouts, the team found a way to score double digits for the seventh time this year and the Bulldogs have now scored at least six runs in all 17 games, a school record to start the year.

Stallman, Frei and Valincius had two hits a piece with Frei delivering two runs with that double. Reese led the squad with his four RBI and fought through a 1-for-4 showing.

The Bulldog pitching staff had its ups and downs. Charlie Foster struggled again in his start as he surrendered two runs in the first inning and gave up three hits and two walks with four strikeouts in 2.1 frames.

Jack Gleason came in behind him and pitched 1.2 innings with a two-run home run delivering a 4-2 lead for the Green Wave. Gleason struck out four batters. Maddox Miller threw 2.0 scoreless with four strikeouts in the scoreless appearance. Brendan Sweeney had his second straight rough outing in the midweek giving up three hits and three runs in 0.2 innings.

Dane Burns got the win as he struck out the only batter he faced and he started 2.1 perfect innings to end the game with Billingsley and Davis each pitching perfect frames to close things out.

State (15-2) now gets ready to take a trip to Fayetteville, Ark., to take on No. 5 Arkansas. The series begins on Friday at 6 p.m. The teams meet on SEC Network Saturday at 1 p.m. and will finish out the series on Sunday at 1 p.m.

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