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Mississippi State turns to Georgia matchup in Hoover

Mississippi State beat writer Colin Dammsby: Colin Damms16 hours agoColintheshots95

Mississippi State will face regular-season SEC champions Georgia in the Third Round of the conference tournament on Thursday.

The meeting is a rematch Battle of the Bulldogs after UGA took the series with a sweep in Starkville earlier in the season. It’s a matchup head coach Brian O’Connor

“They’re good,” O’Connor said when asked about Georgia. “They clearly won the toughest league in the country, and they’re obviously incredibly offensive and have a good pitching staff as well. The three ballgames in Starkville were all great games. Unfortunately, State came out on the wrong end of all of them. But they were great baseball teams, and I expect the same tomorrow.”

All three series games were decided by three runs or less. MSU fell just short of a Game One comeback, losing 10-9 in the ninth inning, and lost 3-1 and 8-5 in the following games, respectively. Game Three was decided in extra innings.

Georgia leads the nation with 147 home runs, and ranks fourth in scoring with 9.4 runs per game.

MSU got six innings out of Tomas Valincius on Wednesday in a seven-inning run-rule victory. Ben Davis threw just 14 pitches to close out the game in the seventh. Though he’s likely not going to throw the next day, the ability to save Dane Burns, Jack Bauer, Maddox Miller and Maddox Webb could prove big as MSU tries to upset UGA.

“We’re going to have to pitch really good and certainly drive runs in,” O’Connor said. “They clearly have an offensive ball club that is extremely talented. But these guys, they’ll be ready. They’ll turn the page, be ready and we look forward to that opportunity.”

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