HATTIESBURG — If anything stood out to Mississippi State baseball coach Andy Cannizaro on the boxscore, it was the nine under innings pitched next to South Alabama starting pitcher Randy Bell’s name.
Bell’s complete-game six-hitter Friday night was the biggest storyline in No. 3 seed USA’s 6-3 victory against No. 2 seed and No. 20 MSU in the NCAA tournament’s Hattiesburg Regional at Pete Taylor Park.
Bell (7-3) walked two and struck out three in a season-high 132-pitch effort. His performance dropped MSU (36-25) into the losers’ bracket where it will take on No. 4 seed Illinois-Chicago (39-16), which lost to No. 1 seed Southern Mississippi 8-7 earlier Friday, at 1 p.m. today.
“Anytime you get a starter that pounds the zone and is going to make you swing the bat, it’s going to be an outstanding start for the other team,” MSU shortstop and leadoff hitter Ryan Gridley said. “That’s what we expect out of our guys.”
Bell threw 90 strikes to lower his earned run average to 3.69. USA coach Mark Calvi was more impressed with the quality of Bell’s strikes.
“Randy had fastball command,” Calvi said. “He kept it out of the middle plate. He pitched in enough and he kept it out of the middle. He had a pretty good changeup in the middle innings against (Cody) Brown, (Jake) Mangum, and (Hunter) Vansau.
“There aren’t many better or more dangerous one, two, three, or four holes in the country. We knew we had out work cut out for us.”
MSU had four hits from leadoff hitters, but Bell limited MSU to three at-bats with runners in scoring position. The Bulldogs were hitless in those at-bats.
MSU’s bats stay quiet
MSU hasn’t had much luck delivering key hits since the end of the regular season.
MSU finished the regular season averaging 5.75 runs per game. In the Southeastern Conference tournament, the Bulldogs averaged three runs per game. With the loss to USA, MSU is averaging 2.6 runs per game in its last five games.
Gridley, using the most recent game as his example, said there is more at play than MSU’s bats.
“You can look at that game and say, ‘Man, we didn’t score many runs,’ but how many balls did we hit hard right at somebody?” Gridley said. “Cody (Brown) laced one right into the gap and (South Alabama center fielder Travis) Swaggerty’s right there. Jake Mangum has great at-bats all day, laces it into the gap and Swaggerty’s right there again. The third baseman’s there when (Hunter Stovall) laces one down the line.
“You can say maybe we’re not producing offensively, but we’re putting good swings on the ball. We’re getting good at-bats. I just think sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want it to.”
Swaggerty proves dangerous
While Swaggerty showed his range in center field, his reputation as a hitter preceded him.
Swaggerty entered the NCAA tournament as the Sun Belt Conference’s leader in the batting average (.361) and was tied for second in the league in RBIs (56). Cannizaro’s method for taming Swaggerty focused controlling the batters ahead of him and giving him as few RBI opportunities as possible.
That didn’t pan out.
Swaggerty drove in four runs with a double and a three-run home run in the fifth.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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