Mississippi State knew it would be hosting an NCAA Regional this weekend before heading to Hoover for the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament. The Bulldogs went 1-2 in the SEC Tournament and returned home a couple of days before the championship game on Sunday. Ole Miss knew they needed a couple of wins and surprised many by winning four games. The Rebels for the second straight year played in the championship game only to lose in the bottom of the ninth inning, 11-10, to regular season champion Vanderbilt.
Both Ole Miss (37-25) and Mississippi State (46-12) will host one of the 16 NCAA Regionals this weekend. The Bulldogs are the No. 4 National seed and are hosting for the first time since 2016. The Rebels are the No. 12 National seed.
Four other SEC teams — Arkansas, Georgia, Vanderbilt and LSU — will also host first round regionals. Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina, Oklahoma Sate, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA and East Carolina are the remaining host squads. The four-team regionals will begin with a pair of games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. An “if necessary" game will be played on Monday.
State is hosting its 14th regional and will be entertaining Miami (Fla.), Central Michigan, and Southern (La.) University in the double-elimination event. Last year, State was the No. 2 seed at Florida State and came away with the regional title. The next weekend they downed Vandy and headed back to their tenth College World Series. MSU won five elimination games on their run to the CWS.
Ole Miss will be hosting a regional for the second straight year. Joining the Rebels in Oxford will be Illinois, Clemson and Jacksonville State. Last year, Ole Miss welcomed St. Louis, Missouri State and Tennessee Tech to Oxford. Tennessee Tech surprised the Rebels to take the championship after winning two of three from Ole Miss.
Southern Mississippi baseball also made the NCAA tournament as they won the Conference USA title that was played in Biloxi at MGM Park. USM (38-19) beat regular season champion Florida Atlantic. The Eagles knew going into the conference tournament they had to win to earn a spot in a fourth consecutive NCAA Regional.
Southern Miss will be headed to Baton Rogue, La. this weekend. The four-team field includes host LSU as well as Arizona State and Stony Brook (N.Y.)
TIGHT GAMES RULE
AT SEC TOURNEY
The SEC tournament had some great games last week. There were eight one-run games and six two-run games in the tournament. Two games went down in the history books. The first tournament game between State and LSU took 6:43 to play. The second game between Ole Miss and Vandy was the longest nine-inning game in tournament history at 4:22 and also the longest championship game. The tournament also set an attendance mark with over 162,000 attending the six-day event.
PITCHING HELD
KEY FOR USM
USM pitchers dominated as they pitched 19 scoreless innings in the Conference USA Tournament. Gabe Shepard and Walker Powell were the ace pitchers in the championship run. Shepard threw 7 1/3 innings of no hit ball in the Saturday win. Cody Carrol and Hunter Stanley finished up the first no-hitter in C-USA play in a dozen years. Matt Wallner was named the MVP of the tournament. He had a walk off home run in the tenth inning of the 6-4 win over Rice. USM longtime broadcaster John Cox called it the Biloxi Miracle as the Eagles (38-19) rallied from a 4-1 deficit to tie the score in the bottom of the ninth inning.
THIS & THAT
— Delta State’s baseball season ended in Tampa as DSU finished with a 42-14 season mark.
— Ole Miss softball fell in the Super Arizona Regional to finish their season.
— Texas A&M announced the hiring of Ole Miss Athletic Director Ross Bjork as their new A.D. Bjork has been in Oxford since 2012. Former Ole Miss basketball player Keith Carter is expected to be named the interim A.D.
— All of football lost an icon this weekend as former Green Bay Packer quarterback Bart Starr passed away. In the decade of the 1960s, Starr led his Packers to five world championships. The match-ups in the 1960s between Starr and the Baltimore Colts Johnny Unitas are still special childhood memories.
Dale McKee is a longtime sportswriter from Waynesboro and writes a weekly column about Mississippi sports for several weekly newspapers. McKee can be reached by email at ddmckee18@yahoo.com.
