Bulldog pitchers quiet Rebel bats for sweep in 7-1 victory

Sundays are about toughness inside the Southeastern Conference and Duke Stone exemplified it in game three against No. 18 Ole Miss.

The sophomore starter got himself and Mississippi State into some jams, but would not relent. Despite walking seven batters, Stone surrendered just one run in his 5.2 innings of action and the No. 6 Diamond Dawgs brought out the long ball to deliver a 6-1 win.

The three-game sweep of the Rebels was the third for State since 2017, all of them coming at Swayze Field.

The Diamond Dawgs pitched the hard hitting Rebel lineup well all weekend long as starters Charlie Foster, Tomas Valincius and Stone pitched 15.0 innings, gave up nine hits, eight walks and only two runs while striking out 20 batters.

“I thought I did decent. I came out there and didn’t have my best stuff but I stayed in the fight,” Stone said. “You’ve got nine guys behind you so make one pitch at a time and get ahead in counts.”

Rebels can’t breakthrough despite opportunities

On three separate occasions, Stone would load up the bases full of Rebels but Ole Miss couldn’t score on any of those opportunities. After giving up an RBI single with one out in the first, he walked a batter and gave up a single to load the bases with two down. A three-pitch strikeout ended that threat and would start a trend.

Stone walked two and gave up a single to Will Furniss, but he came back and got a strikeout and flyout. His final work came in the sixth when he surrendered a couple of two-out walks and a single. Ben Davis came in and got Judd Utermark to flyout to end the inning.

Davis had one more bases loaded situation to get out of in the eighth inning. With two outs, Davis surrendered a single, double and four-pitch walk and found Utermark again. He got him looking for strike three to end the last threat of the day.

The pitching wasn’t perfect for State on Sunday, but it again got the job done. Stone pitched a career-high 5.2 innings with four hits scattered and one run. He had seven walks but struck out eight in the win.

It was a big turnaround for Davis after giving up the lead on Friday night with two walks and a three-run home run. The senior pitched 2.1 innings, gave up two hits, one walk and no runs while striking out four.

“It felt good,” Davis said. “Duke gave us a great start today and being able to come in behind him and pick up where he left off was awesome. A confidence booster for sure.”

While pitching and defense kept the Bulldogs cruising on the mound, the Bulldog offense beat the Rebels at their own game. Ole Miss hit just two home runs all weekend with zero home runs in the last two games. State hit seven long balls with four of those coming on Sunday afternoon.

Ace Reese got it going early against Ole Miss starter Cade Townsend when he followed up a leadoff double from Aidan Teel with a two-run shot. Freshman Jacob Parker got State back on the board in the fourth with a solo shot and Andrew Raymond followed with a two-run home run to make it 5-1.

A Reed Stallman single in the fifth extended the lead again and Kevin Milewski would deliver a solo home run in the ninth for the 7-1 win.

While State’s offense struck out 14 times in the game, they made it count against the Ole Miss pitchers. Teel was 2-for-5 with a double in the win while Reese and Raymond drove in two.

With the win, State (24-4, 7-2 SEC) has won eight-straight games with six-straight in SEC play after the second sweep in a row. The Diamond Dawgs won all four this week against instate, top 20 foes Southern Miss and OM.

The Bulldogs will look to keep that rolling with a big week ahead. After playing Grambling on Tuesday night, State will host No. 7 Georgia on Thursday-Sunday with the winner getting a chance to likely stay atop the standings of the SEC.

“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,” head coach Brian O’Connor said. “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.”