Dogs To Test Top-Ranked Vandy For Berth In SEC Tourney Title Game
Saturday’s games will be televised nationally on ESPNEWS and regionally on CSS, and will also be available on WatchESPN. The radio broadcast of all Mississippi State post season games are carried on Mississippi State’s statewide Bulldog Sports Network with live audio streaming available online to HailStateTV subscribers (www.hailstate.com/hstvlive).
The fifth-seeded Bulldogs are 3-0 during their 29th SEC Tournament advancement, having bested Missouri (2-1) in a 17-inning opening night marathon, South Carolina (5-3) and Texas A&M (6-4). Vanderbilt, after winning the SEC regular season title with a 26-2 worksheet and drawing an opening round SECT bye, dropped a 5-0 decision to Texas A&M and then bested South Carolina 4-3 and Texas A&M 3-0 to reach Saturday’s elimination game.
Southpaw Jacob Lindgren (4-2, 3.76) will make the 14th start of his sophomore season.
The game is a rematch of last year’s SEC Tournament title game, a 3-0 Mississippi State win. Vanderbilt claimed all three of this year’s regular season series in Nashville. The Commodores won 3-1, 5-2, and 8-3. Brett Pirtle, currently riding a 32-game reached base streak, paced MSU in the Vandy series Apr. 26-28 with a 6-for-10 weekend.
Junior shortstop Adam Frazier (.349) went 4-for-5 Thursday in State’s 6-4 win over Texas A&M to take over the team hitting lead. He raised his hits total to 88 and extended his current hitting streak to a career-longest 10 games.
The MSU-Vanderbilt winner moves on to Sunday’s nationally televised (ESPN2) 3:30 p.m. title game against either LSU or Arkansas.