Everything Brian O'Connor said after Mississippi State swept Ole Miss

It was a big opportunity for Mississippi State when the Diamond Dawgs traveled to Ole Miss over the weekend to take on the No. 18 Rebels.

After the weekend cleared, State put together another strong run in an SEC series as the Bulldogs won all three over the Rebels for the first sweep since 2019. A 7-1 win on Sunday cemented a great weekend for No. 6 State.

Following the game, State head coach Brian O’Connor spoke to the media about the victory.

Question: Duke Stone didn’t have his best stuff but gave you a quality start. What did you think of the pitching performance?

BOC: “I thought Duke Stone, after the first inning, really settled down. In the first inning, it looked like he was pumped up trying to do too much. Seven walks is very uncharacteristic of him, but he showed great poise. He had runners on a lot and made big pitches. Just really proud of him. To get to the sixth inning on a Sunday was huge for us. Once it turned to the second and third inning, he looked like he was throwing his pitches with a lot more conviction than he was early.

“Proud of him. Growth moment, obviously, on the road against your rival. Got us off to a terrific start.”

Q: What did you think of the pitching all weekend?

BOC: “I thought the pitching was outstanding. Certainly you can nitpick and say we walked too many guys or whatever, but what they did all weekend is they made big, clutch pitches when they needed to with runners on. That’s a sign of a really good pitching staff that doesn’t run away from difficult times, they run to it. That was big.

“A lot was made of being without (Ryan) McPherson. I don’t know how long he’s going to be out – we’re going to find out more this week. Guys stepped up – from Charlie Foster to (Tomas Valincius), Duke Stone, guys out of the bullpen. How about (Tyler) Pitzer on Friday night? It was great to see Dane Burns go out there and finish it off in the ninth. Ben Davis, the kid’s got terrific stuff. He wasn’t his best on Friday night. For whatever reason the fastball wasn’t there, but it was there today.”

Q: Ole Miss had the bases loaded four times and you got out of it every time. Is that a mentality thing?

BOC: “Yeah, it’s all mentality. All American pitchers, if you average their walks, hit by pitches and hits they’re going to equal their innings pitched. You’re going to be pitching with runners on all the time, but that’s what separates yourself. What’s in your gut is determined by how you manage difficult pitching situations. Our pitching staff has done a really terrific job of that most all of this year and that’s part of the reason we are where we are right now.”

Q: What did you think of the offensive approach?

BOC: “(Cade) Townsend is one of the best pitchers we’ve faced all year. He’s really, really good. That breaking ball to lefties, the slider and the cutter.. I thought the kid pitched really good, just a couple of great swings by us. (Aidan) Teel in the first with the double and Ace Reese hitting the ball out and a few other guys. We had a ton of strikeouts, but we had the big hits. Sometimes in this league that’s what it takes the two or three-run home run to win a game and we did our share of that this weekend.”

Q: Where does Jacob Parker rank among your top freshmen you’ve coached?

BOC: “We’re only 25-26 games into the season but it doesn’t surprise me what the young man’s doing because I’ve seen how he’s been trending throughout the season and the adjustments that he’s made. Y’all have heard me talk about the presence that he’s had. He’s incredibly even keeled, the moment’s not too big for him. He’s going to be pretty special in this uniform.

“I’ve been fortunate in my career to have a lot of really great freshmen that have impacted games. Kyle Teel had a special freshman year. Henry Ford who is over at Tennessee hit 22 or 23 home runs his freshman year. There’s been others, but this young man is really talented. If he stays where he’s at and stays with that same approach – difference maker for us, candidly.”

Q: You win four games against top 20 instate schools this week. What did you takeaway from the week?

BOC: “What I take away from it is we’re consistent. You see what you’re going to get out of us and that’s shown in almost every game. These young men come ready to play every day. That said, we can’t get too far out ahead of us. We’ve played three SEC series and we’ve played pretty darn well. The meat of our schedule is moving forward. We just have to take it for what it is, be proud of it and feel good about ourselves, but also know that there’s the next opportunity on Tuesday and we have a lot of baseball left and a lot to prove.”