STARKVILLE — Trevor Fitts never imagined his Mississippi State baseball career could end like this.
The senior closer was part of MSU’s run to the College World Series and national championship series in 2013. He also enjoyed NCAA regional appearances as a freshman in 2012 and as a junior in 2014.
This season, Fitts is part of a team fighting for its postseason life with one Southeastern Conference series left. MSU (24-27, 8-19 SEC), which takes on Tennessee at 5 p.m. today in Game 1 of a three-game SEC weekend series, has won three of its last 18 games and is limping to its worst finish since 2010. Game 2 of the Tennessee series will be at 5 p.m. Friday. The finale will be at noon Saturday.
“I’m just trying to avoid having the experience of missing an SEC tournament,” said Fitts, who leads MSU with a 2.03 ERA in 19 appearances. “That would be a bad experience. This hasn’t been the year we expected and wanted, but I wouldn’t trade these guys for anything.”
MSU’s eight-player senior class has never missed the NCAA tournament, let alone the conference tournament. But that’s where the Bulldogs are with three regular-season games remaining. MSU is in last place in the SEC, two spots away from securing the 12th and final spot to qualify for the league tournament. MSU, Tennessee, and Georgia are fighting for the berth. Georgia (8-17) leads MSU by a one-and-a-half-games. MSU must win two more games than Georgia this weekend to qualify for the conference tournament. If Georgia wins once in its series against Arkansas, MSU must sweep Tennessee. If Georgia loses all three, MSU must win twice in Knoxville. If Georgia wins at least two games against Arkansas, the Bulldogs will be eliminated.
That’s a challenging situation to face for a senior class that won 120 games in its first three seasons. That span peaked in 2013, when the Bulldogs finished 51-20 and lost to UCLA in the national championship series.
“Early in my career, there were a lot of ups,” Fitts said. “We won the SEC tournament, went to regionals, then we had the big College World Series run. Last year, we got to the last game of a regional. I didn’t think we’d be in this position this year.”
From 2012-14, MSU never finished lower than fifth in the SEC. This year, MSU can finish no higher than 12th.
Even though MSU has lost eight of its nine SEC series, MSU coach John Cohen remains positive entering the weekend.
“I still am very excited about some things this team is doing,” Cohen said. “In fact, this team does several things better than our 2013 team, which almost won a national championship. This may be the best practice team I’ve ever coached. It’s just … there are these little moments within games that we aren’t winning, and it’s having an effect on our season. If we can win these moments, I think you’ll see a much different result.”
So far, Cohen’s positive outlook hasn’t translated to wins on the field. Since MSU took two of three games from South Carolina on the first weekend in April, MSU is 3-15. The wins — all by one run — came against Texas A&M, Arkansas, and LSU. Last weekend, Ole Miss swept MSU in Oxford. The series tended with the Rebels rallying from a five-run deficit in the ninth inning and winning in the 10th.
“It was hard to get over,” MSU senior right fielder Jake Vickerson said. “But you have to. You have to bounce back and worry about this weekend because that’s all that matters.”
The early start times mean the Volunteers and Bulldogs will know where they stand when Georgia and Arkansas play in Athens, Georgia, to determine how many wins they need to earn a berth in the SEC tournament.
Cohen believes MSU can’t pay attention to that.
“You have to focus on what’s important, which is throwing strikes, continuing to play sound defensively and continuing to progress offensively,” Cohen said. “You can’t worry about what’s out of your control. You have to focus on the task at hand.”
Cohen said Tennessee (21-25, 8-18) is “as competitive as anybody.” He said the Volunteers are like the Bulldogs in some ways.
“If you flip their season and consider their one-run losses, they could easily have 14, 15 wins in this league,” Cohen said. “They are a good team. If you put them in any other league in America, they could be a great team.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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