Rea's Grand Slam Part Of Saturday Doubleheader Sweep

Saturday, February 14

Starkville

12:00 PM

Mississippi State

2-0

Miami (OH)

0-2

Miami (OH)

Mississippi State

Rea's Grand Slam Part Of Saturday Doubleheader Sweep

February 15, 2015 | Baseball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

By: hailstate.com

STARKVILLE, Miss. – Mississippi State brought out the big bats Saturday as it swept Miami 7-1 and Cincinnati 19-5 at Dudy Noble Field.

The Bulldogs collected 21 hits for the afternoon, including three home runs in the opener.

“A good afternoon,” MSU head coach John Cohen said. “We got a lot of good swings from a lot of different players. When you have someone like (Jacob) Robson and some of the guys in our order, you're going to hurry a defense a little bit and there's going to be some throw aways.”

Against Miami, Wes Rea started right things off on the right foot with a massive first-inning grand slam home run to left field. An inning later, Jake Vickerson launched his first career home run to right field. Reid Humphreys also homered for the Bulldogs in the seventh inning.

Such offense would be more than enough for the pitching duo of Lucas Laster and Ross Mitchell.

Mitchell (1-0) earned the win with 5.2 innings of three-hit, shutout relief. Mitchell struck out three and walked one while facing 19 batters. Laster drew the start and was lifted after running into danger in the fourth inning. Laster allowed two hits in 3.1 innings of work.

The Bulldogs finished with eight hits – one apiece by Seth Heck, John Holland, Humphreys, Jacob Robson, Rea, Cody Brown, Vickerson and Walker.

Scott Slappey had two hits for the Redhawks (0-2). Ryan Powers (0-1) worked three innings and took the loss.

Against Cincinnati, the Bulldogs rallied from an early 4-0 deficit by scoring four runs in the home half of the second inning.

The Maroon and White later blew things open with three runs in the fifth inning and eight runs in the sixth inning.

Robson continued his early tear with three hits and an RBI. Humphreys had two hits and three RBIs. Ryan Gridley also had two hits in his MSU debut.

Vance Tatum (1-0) picked up the win with 4.2 innings of one-hit scoreless relief with four strikeouts. Jesse McCord drew the start and was pulled in the second inning. Levi Mintz, Trent Waddell and Dakota Hudson also pitched for the Bulldogs.

“Vance has been outstanding in the fall and the early part of the spring,” Cohen said. “He's been really good. We had to use him earlier than we wanted to today. He was probably the most valuable player of the game, just putting up a ton of zeroes when we really needed it.”

Ian hit his second home run of the season for the Bearcats (1-2) and finished with two hits. Ryan Noda and Kyle Mottice were also multiple hitters for Cincinnati. Jarod Yoakam (0-1) took the loss in relief.

MSU will close its season-opening four-game weekend series by playing Cincinnati at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. For more information on head coach John Cohen's club, follow the team on Twitter, like them on Facebook and join them on Instagram by searching for “HailStateBB.” You can also find all-access coverage of the program on SnapChat by searching for “HailStateSnap.”