OMAHA, Neb. — There was a somber tone to the Mississippi State locker room Wednesday afternoon.
Just minutes after falling 6-3 to second-seeded Vanderbilt in the College World Series, there was a visible irritation in the eyes of players around the space — a staunch contrast from the jubilation and joy following Sunday’s walk-off win over Auburn.
While the mood among the Bulldogs baseball players looked downtrodden and miffed, sophomore shortstop Jordan Westburg tried to stay positive.
“I feel like there’s not a lot of pressure on us,” Westburg said. “I feel like it’s what we’ve done all year and what we did last year. I think this group of returners and this group of new guys sets the tone really well. (We’re) just going to go out and play hard.”
The Bulldogs enter Thursday’s elimination game against No. 7 Louisville as the owners of 28 come-from-behind victories this season — the most in Division I.
And though Wednesday’s rally fell short, MSU played inspired baseball over the final four innings — cutting Vanderbilt’s once 6-0 lead in half.
“We didn’t play the best baseball we could have played,” senior third baseman Marshall Gilbert said. “Unfortunately, one or two things every single game is what costs you, and you can’t have those kinds of mistakes against teams like this at this level.”
Dating back to last year, this team has been in this postseason position before — albeit with mixed results.
MSU dropped its first game of the 2018 Tallahassee Regional 20-10 to Oklahoma before walking-off in the bottom of the ninth against Florida State on an Elijah MacNamee home run the next game to stave off elimination. The Bulldogs then rattled off three straight victories to advance to the Nashville Super Regional against Vanderbilt.
Once in Nashville, MSU also faced a do-or-die game three in which it defeated the Commodores 10-6 in 11 innings.
The Bulldogs’ road ended in Omaha. Sitting one victory away from reaching the national championship series, MSU lost back-to-back games to eventual champion Oregon State.
“To be honest with you, we’re used to playing with our backs against the wall,” sophomore first baseman Tanner Allen said. “We play better with our backs against the wall. We’re a hardnosed team, man. We knew this road wasn’t going to be easy.”
In the opposing dugout, the Bulldogs will get a Louisville team that has played with fire virtually the entire postseason.
The Cardinals dropped their second game of the NCAA tournament to Illinois State before drudging through the loser’s bracket to escape their own regional.
Louisville also dropped its opening game of the CWS to Vanderbilt and survived an elimination game against Auburn Wednesday to advance.
That said, MSU remains confident heading into what could be its final game of 2019.
“We’ve just got to remember that we’re Mississippi State,” Gilbert said. “We’re still within our team and that’s what we do — we play well every time, every single day and I think we’re going to give it everything that we have.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.