State Wraps Up Early Home Stand With Nicholls Series
STARKVILLE, Miss. - Mississippi State puts the finishing touches on its February schedule and a season-opening nine-game home stand this weekend when the Bulldogs (5-1) play host to Nicholls University (3-2) in a three-game set at Dudy Noble Field.
The series opens Friday at 4 p.m. and continues with games at 1 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday. The radio broadcast of all three games will be carried on WFCA-FM (107.9) while live video streaming of the MSU-Nicholls series will be available this weekend on "Maroon to the Max", the premium extension of the MSU athletics web site
www.MStateAthletics.com. Sunday's third game will be offered free to the general public by M2M.
Saturday’s game is the first half of a baseball/basketball doubleheader at Mississippi State, and basketball game day parking restrictions will be enforced. The basketball Bulldogs take on SEC West rival Auburn Saturday at 5 p.m. in Humphrey Coliseum.
The Diamond Dogs got a run-scoring double in the bottom of the eighth inning Wednesday night to turn back Mississippi Valley State 4-3.
Freshman Brent Brownlee (Oxford, Miss.) laced a double into the leftfield corner, scoring pinch-runner Grant Hogue (Hattiesburg, Miss.) and making a winner of relief pitcher Justin Bussey (1-0) from Dora, Ala.
Junior right-hander Ricky Bowen (Jasper, Ala.) is due to open on the hill for the Bulldogs, with freshman lefty Nick Routt (Silver Spring, Md.) set to open on the hill for State in Saturday’s game.
Bowen registered a staff season-high eight strikeouts in a four-inning, no-decision start against Northern Illinois on opening day last Friday while Routt came within an inning of a complete-game, scattering seven hits over eight innings in a Bulldog win over North Florida.
Junior infielder Jet Butler (Pensacola, Fla.), whose pinch-hit, three-run home run lifted State to a BankFirst Baseball Challenge-clinching 9-7 win over North Florida last Sunday, enters the weekend with the team’s top batting average. Butler (.438) and Senatobia, Miss., native Russ Sneed (.412) share the team lead with seven hits each.
Nicholls enters the weekend sporting a lofty .341 team batting average, led by Adam Miley (.588) and Chris Murrill (.529). Senior right-hander Lance Dupuis (1-0, 0.00), who earned Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week honors for his opening day exploits, is expected to draw starting pitching duty for the Colonels Friday. Dupuis struck out 11 and allowed two hits in an impressive six-inning start and win against Chicago State last weekend.
The Colonels, who out-scored opening weekend foe Chicago State 46-5, dropped a hard-fought 8-7, 10-inning decision Wednesday night and a two-game mid-week set at Alabama.
Mississippi State has used 29 different players, 22 of them in starting roles, and taken the field with a different starting lineup in each of the first six games. Junior first baseman Connor Powers (Naperville, Ill.) and sophomore right-fielder Ryan Collins (Callaway, Fla.) are the only Bulldog players to start all six games.
MSU owns a 5-0 series lead against Nicholls, with all five games in the series staged in Starkville. The teams first met in 1964, with Paul Gregory’s Bulldogs claiming 5-3 and 4-2 decisions. Two of the five meetings have come during NCAA regional tournament competition at Dudy Noble Field in 1989 and 1992. State ran its series record against Nicholls to 5-0 with a 10-2 win in 1995.
Following the Nicholls series the Bulldogs head westward for a four-game series at the University of Hawaii (Mar. 5-9). State’s next home competition is a day/night doubleheader against first-time foe Valparaiso (Mar. 11).