HATTIESBURG — The Mississippi State baseball team fought off the rain and two opponents Sunday to keep its season alive.
Buoyed by a 5-4 victory against No. 4 seed Illinois-Chicago and a 7-3 victory against No. 3 seed South Alabama, No. 2 seed and 20th-ranked MSU will take on top-seeded and No. 14 Southern Mississippi at 1 p.m. today to decide the champion of the NCAA tournament’s Hattiesburg Regional at Pete Taylor Park.
The game can be heard on WKBB-FM 100.9 and be streamed live on ESPN3.
MSU (38-25) will have to beat Southern Miss (50-14) this afternoon to force another game at 6 tonight. The winner of the Hattiesburg Regional will face LSU this weekend in the best-of-three Baton Rouge Super Regional.
The Bulldogs earned their two victories after rain washed out all of the action Saturday. USM beat USA 8-3 in the second game Sunday to stay in the winners’ bracket with a 2-0 record in the double-elimination event.
MSU lost to USM 7-5 on March 21 at Trustmark Park in Pearl in the only meeting this season.
MSU starting pitcher Denver McQuary (3-3) went five innings and allowed two hits, which were solo home runs by former New Hope High School standout Wells Davis. Peyton Plumlee surrendered one run on two hits in four innings for his first save. He walked one and struck out five.
Konnor Pilkington (8-5) pitched into the eighth inning and had a stretch of 14-straight retired batters against UIC. Jake Mangum had three hits, while Brent Rooker, Ryan Gridley, Elijah MacNamee, and Brown had two.
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.