Mississippi State
Alcorn State
Bulldogs Best Braves, 8-1
March 01, 2011 | Baseball
The Bulldogs won their third straight in 2011 while moving their mark to 10-0 in the all-time series against the Braves. MSU is now 8-1 overall, while Southwestern Athletic Conference member Alcorn State fell to 2-6.
Sophomore right-hander Kendall Graveman (1-0) pitched seven innings of three-hit baseball to earn the victory. Graveman struck out a career-high seven batters with one walk. In his second longest stint as a Bulldog, Graveman only faced one batter past the minimum.
Tim Statz and C.T. Bradford threw an inning each to complete the four-hitter. It is the sixth quality start by an MSU pitcher this season.
"This is one of those games where the scoreboard won't tell the whole story," MSU head coach John Cohen said. "We got a lot of different guys in to do a lot of different things. Alcorn State has a lot of incentive coming in here and playing an SEC school. I thought we handled it pretty well."
The Maroon and White would generate all of the offense it needed for victory by scoring three times in the first inning.
In that opening frame for State, Nick Vickerson opened with a single and stole second just ahead of a walk issued to C.T. Bradford. Jarrod Parks followed with an RBI-single, scoring Vickerson. Daryl Norris drew another walk. Jonathan Ogden followed with a sacrifice fly fielded by the ASU second baseman, scoring Bradford. An RBI-single by Cody Freeman capped the big inning.
Six of the next seven Bulldogs were retired before the State struck for three more scores in the fourth inning.
Freeman and Ryan Collins began this at-bat with back-to-back singles. After back-to-back outs, Vickerson drew a walk to load the bases. Bradford reached as a hit batsman, forcing in Freeman. Parks followed with a two-run single to right field, capping the fourth inning outburst.
The teams traded runs in the fifth inning. An RBI-single by Gabriel LeBron paced the Braves on the board. The Bulldogs came right back with three-hit frame, which included singles by Ogden, Collins and Brownlee. Brownlee's hit scored Freeman, who had drawn a walk in that frame. Ogden extended his team-best hitting streak to six games with the hit.
A sacrifice-fly by Collins capped the MSU scoring in the seventh inning.
The Bulldogs finished with 12 hits. Parks, Ogden, Freeman, Collins and Brownlee each had multiple hits. Parks finished with three RBIs.
Eduardo Gonzalez had two of the Braves' four hits. Brent Blaum (0-1) lasted five innings, while taking the loss.
The Bulldogs resume their 14-game homestand with a double round-robin tournament this weekend at Dudy Noble Field. In Friday's opening session, Georgia State and Iowa meet at 12:30 p.m., while Iowa and Mississippi State will follow at 4 p.m. Each team plays four games during the three-day event.
