Diamond Dogs Test Panthers In 2005 Season Opener
May 25, 2016 | Baseball
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STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Mississippi State raises the curtains on its 115th season of baseball Friday afternoon when the 17th-ranked Bulldogs take on first-time foe Eastern Illinois at Dudy Noble Field. Former Mississippi State and Major League pitching standout Bobby Thigpen will throw out the ceremonial first pitch to open the three-game series and nine-game home stand for State.
MSU enters the new season ranked 17th in the NCBWA national college baseball writers poll and 19th by Collegiate Baseball magazine.
Senior right-hander Alan Johnson is set for season-opening starting mound duty for the Bulldogs. He'll work opposite Panther senior left-hander Ted Juske (0-1). Eastern illinois, coached by three-time OVC Coach of the Year Jim Schmitz, dropped a three-game season-opening series last weekend at Oklahoma (19-3, 10-7, 6-1).
The three-game MSU-EIU series continues Saturday with a 2 p.m. contest before wrapping up opening weekend with a 12:30 p.m. game Sunday.
Bulldog skipper Ron Polk enters his 26th campaign as Mississippi State head coach a win away from yet another career milestone at MSU. Polk enters the campaign with a 999-490-2 record and stands to become one of a handful of coaches to have won 1,000 games at one school. He already rates as the winningest coach in any sport in Southeastern Conference history, while his 31-year coaching mark of 1,233-602-2 places Polk seventh among the winningest active coaches in NCAA Division I baseball.
Polk picked up his 1,000th career coaching win Feb. 27, 1997 in an 11-2 win over Delta State and notched his 1,000th win as a coach in the Southeastern Conference May 19, 2002 with a 10-5 win over Mississippi.
All three of Mississippi State's opening weekend games against Eastern Illinois will be video-streamed live on Maroon to the Max, the new premium address on the official web site of MSU Athletics, www.MStateAthletics.com. The games will also be radio broadcast locally on WFCA-FM (107.9).
Mississippi State continues its season-opening run of nine home games next week, entertaining Mississippi Valley State March 1 before taking on Austin Peay and Kansas in the fifth annual National Bank of Commerce Classic March 4-6 at Dudy Noble Field.
