Dogs Open Alabama Series WIth Saturday Twinbill
With commencement exercises scheduled on the MSU campus Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 10 a.m., the weekend baseball series will begin Saturday with a 2 p.m. doubleheader and conclude Sunday with a 1:30 p.m. contest. It's the first scheduled SEC Saturday doubleheader at Dudy Noble Field since 1993. The second contest of Saturday's two scheduled nine-inning games will begin approximately 30 minutes following the opening game. The April 30 (Game 28) season ticket will be honored at the Saturday doubleheader.
The opening game of Saturday's twinbill is set to be televised regionally by SportSouth, while the radio broadcast of all three games will be carried on the 18-affiliate MSU Baseball Radio Network and available online (www.MStateAthletics.com/m2mlive) to Maroon to the Max subscribers.
Mississippi State heads into the final four weekends of league competition two games out of first place in the SEC West and in the thick of a tight race for a top eight conference finish and an accompanying berth in the 2011 SEC Baseball Tournament May 25-29 in Hoover, Ala. Alabama is a game ahead of MSU and one game behind a trio of teams tied for the top spot in the SEC Western Division.
State sophomore right-hander Chris Stratton (4-5, 5.02) will be matched with Alabama senior righty Nathan Kilcrease (5-3, 2.94) in Saturday's opener while MSU junior lefty Nick Routt (0-2, 4.15) and UA junior lefty Adam Morgan (4-4, 4.28) will open on the mound in the nightcap. Neither team has declared a Sunday starter.
Bulldog senior third baseman Jarrod Parks enters the series riding a personal-best and team-leading 13-game hitting streak with a SEC-leading .409 batting average and a league-best .533 on-base percentage. The Madison, Miss., product is making a bid to become the first Mississippi State player to win the SEC batting crown since 2006 (Thomas Berkery, .383) and the first State player to eclipse the .400 mark since Travis Chapman closed out the 1999 campaign with a .403 batting average.
MSU freshman outfielder/pitcher C.T. Bradford (.308) enters the weekend's competition with 48 hits, second-most on the team and tops among freshmen in the SEC.
The Bulldogs end a run of 10 consecutive games against rugged SEC foes Tuesday with a 6 p.m. game at South Alabama. MSU closes out its league schedule with road series at Tennessee (May 6-8) and Ole Miss (May 12-14) and a Thursday-through-Saturday home series against LSU (May 19-21).