No. 15 Diamond Dogs Back At The Dude To Host LSU
Friday's 6:30 p.m. game also begins the second half of the 10-weekend SEC schedule for 2007. MSU opens the series trailing SEC and divisional leader Arkansas (30-10, 11-4 SEC) by two games and sporting the league's second-best conference winning percentage.
Sophomore righthander Chad Crosswhite (4-1, 3.31) of Brandon, Miss., who moved into MSU's starting weekend rotation during the Bulldogs' just-concluded road run, will make his third start of the season and his first career start at Dudy Noble Field in Friday's series-opener. Crosswhite earned series-opening wins at No. 3 Arkansas and, with a career-best seven-inning performance, in last weekend's rain-abbreviated one-game mini-series at Tennessee. He owns a 3-0 record in six league games (two starts) this season.
Junior lefty Charlie Furbush (3-4, 4.29) leads the LSU staff with 59 strikeouts and will make his 11th start of the season Friday for the Tigers.
Mississippi State has won 10 of its last 12 games and opens the weekend with a .340 team batting average, tops in the Southeastern Conference. Three Bulldog batters currently rank among the league's top six in hitting. Freshman shortstop Brandon Turner, riding a career-best 13-game hitting streak, ranks second in the SEC with a .431 batting average, just behind league-leader Matt LaPorta (.435) of Florida. Junior catcher Edward Easley is fourth in the league with a .400 average while junior first baseman Mitch Moreland is hitting at a .372 clip to rank sixth in the SEC.
LSU, with wins in three of its last four SEC games, is paced by freshman catcher Blake Dean. Tabbed by the conference as this week's SEC Freshman of the Week, Dean leads the Tigers in hitting (.352), hits (51), extra-base hits (18), RBI (31), walks (16) and sacrifice flies (6). The Tigers' rookie enters the weekend series riding a 19-game hitting streak, the longest such streak in the SEC this year.
The visit to Dudy Noble Field will be the fifth for first-year LSU head coach Paul Mainieri. Mainieri played for LSU against State in Starkville as a freshman in 1976, Ron Polk's first season as MSU head coach. He later played on the University of New Orleans team that competed in the 1979 NCAA South Regional in Starkville. And his teams made two trips to Starkville during his successful 12-year run as head coach at Notre Dame, advancing to the championship game of the 2000 NCAA Starkville Regional and competing in the inaugural NBC (now Cadence Bank) Classic in 2001.
Mississippi State leads the all-time series 197-155-1, while MSU skipper Ron Polk is 69-54 in all-time coaching matchups with LSU.
The series resumes with a 2 p.m. game Saturday while Sunday's series finale is set for a 1:30 p.m. first pitch.
The Bulldogs resume non-conference competition at home next Tuesday and Wednesday, host instate C-USA rival Southern Miss in a pair of 6:30 p.m. contests.