STARKVILLE — Brent Rooker got the best of Joey Lucchesi in his first at-bat.
The Mississippi State baseball designated hitter jumped on a 2-0 fastball and hit a solo home run to right field off the Southeastern Missouri State ace in the second inning.
Before his next at-bat, Rooker talked with Jacob Robson in the on-deck circle.
“We both thought he would go breaking ball and try to get strike one on me,” Rooker said.
Rooker was right and hit the breaking ball deep to center field. The blow glanced off the glove of center fielder Dan Holston and bounced over the wall and into the lounge for a three-run home that tied the game in the third.
Rooker’s blasts provided top-seeded MSU with the sparks it needed in a 9-5 victory Friday in the opener of the Starkville Regional at Dudy Noble Field. The win moved No. 6 national seed and No. 4 MSU (42-16-1) into a winners’ bracket game Saturday.
Rooker saw three fastballs in his first at-bat and knew he probably wouldn’t see another one. Although Lucchesi’s changeup is his go-to off-speed pitch, that wasn’t the case against the Bulldogs.
“He had been throwing the breaking ball more than his changeup,” Rooker said. “We thought coming in he was going to throw a lot of changeups, but early on he stuck to his breaking ball a little bit more, even to righties. He was throwing that early just trying to steal a strike.”
Holston stopped short of the center-field wall and looked to be tracking the ball. He reached up, but the ball hit the tip of his glove, hit the top of the wall, and bounced over to tie it at 4.
“When it came off, I knew I hit it well, but going to that part of the park in Dudy Noble, the ball doesn’t really fly well,” Rooker said. “I think the wind helped me out a bit. I actually thought he caught it rounding first base, and I was pretty excited when it went over his head.”
Although the Redhawks (39-21) took a 5-4 lead on a single by Chris Osborne in the sixth, the home run was a turning point.
“I guarantee Dan will say the same thing — that’s a play that should have been made,” SEMO coach Steve Bieser said. “I’m not speaking for him, but what I saw is he got a little lax and saw he was there and just reached up for the ball. The momentum of the ball carried his glove to the top of the wall.”
It is the second multi-home run game for Rooker (he hit two May 14 at Auburn). He is the only Bulldog with multi-home run games.
Rooker was given the opportunity to tie the game after back-to-back two-out hits. After Jake Mangum and Jack Kruger grounded out, Nathaniel Lowe singled to right field. Gavin Collins followed with a single to right field to put runners on the corners. With the left-handed Lucchesi, who threw 154 pitches in two outings last weekend in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, MSU coach John Cohen believed one of his right-handed hitters was going to have a big day. He wasn’t surprised it was Rooker.
“He just sees the ball very, very well,” Cohen said of why Rooker hits left-handers so well. “He’s got so much bat speed it’s ridiculous. We have this Trackman technology we use in BP (batting practice), and he regularly hits balls 110, 112, 115 miles an hour off his barrel. It’s pretty impressive how hard he hits balls.”
The Bulldogs took the lead for good with three runs in the sixth. Robson reached on a leadoff error and scored on a single by Ryan Gridley. Hunter Stovall drove home Reid Humphreys on a fielder’s choice. Stovall scored on a wild pitch.
Jack Kruger hit a two-run inside-the-park home run in the eighth to give MSU the four-run cushion entering the ninth.
Rooker has had several home runs robbed at Dudy Noble and didn’t want to get too excited after the ball left his bat. But he trusted the scouting report he and Robson produced.
“I was looking for something up in the zone and I put a pretty good swing on it. I happened to hit it on the right spot on the bat,” Rooker said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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