State Drops Opening Game Of Baton Rouge Super Regional

Saturday, June 10

Baton Rouge, La.

8:00 PM

Mississippi State

40-26

#4 LSU

47-17

Mississippi State

LSU

Cody Brown delivered a clutch two-run double in the eighth inning on Saturday.

State Drops Opening Game Of Baton Rouge Super Regional

June 10, 2017 | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Box Score (PDF)

BATON ROUGE, La. – A shutout performance by Konnor Pilkington was not quite enough for Mississippi State on Saturday night.

After throwing seven innings of shutout baseball, the MSU bullpen could not close the deal as the Bulldogs dropped a 4-3 decision to No. 4 national seed LSU in the opening game of the Baton Rouge Super Regional.

LSU (47-17) won its 15th straight by scoring four times in the eighth inning to erase a 3-0 deficit. Home teams completed the opening round of super regional play with a perfect 8-0 record. MSU (40-26) will now have to win twice to take the super regional and advance to the College World Series.

The second game in the best-of-three series is set for 8 p.m. CT Sunday on ESPN2.

Pilkington threw six innings of four-hit shutout baseball for the Bulldogs. Pilkington was lifted after a single and walk to start the LSU seventh inning. Peyton Plumlee worked the Bulldogs out of that jam with the team's third double play of the game.

In the eighth inning, LSU rallied as Plumlee was touched for three earned runs and Riley Self (5-2) allowed the game-tying hit – a single by Zach Watson. Michael Papierski capped the four-run, four-hit inning with a go-ahead sacrifice fly.

MSU scored once in the first inning of LSU ace Alex Lange.

Brent Rooker walked, Ryan Gridley singled and Cody Brown walked. Jake Mangum reached as a hit batsman to force in a run. A pair of strikeouts followed though and the Bulldogs left the bases loaded,

Lange threw well from there, lasting 7.2 innings for the Tigers.

In the eighth inning, Hunter Stovall started things with a one-out double. After Rooker was intentionally walked, Cody Brown followed with a two-run double to left.

Zack Hess (7-1) worked the Tigers out of that tight spot and overcame a leadoff single by Elijah MacNamee in the ninth inning to garner the win. MacNamee was sacrificed to second and later stranded at third to end the game.

MSU finished with four hits and stranded seven base runners.

Watson, Beau Jordan and Antoine Duplantis each had two hits for LSU, which totaled eight hits as a team.

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