The Mississippi State baseball team’s season came to an end Sunday, falling two wins shy of the College World Series.
Mississippi State (43-19) was swept by Georgia (51-12) in the Athens Super Regional, dropping a 13-12 slugfest Saturday before losing an 11-9 extra-inning thriller Sunday.
Georgia jumped out to an early 4-0 lead before Mississippi State answered in the second inning on a two-run homer by Kevin Milewski – his third home run in less than 30 hours – that also scored Vytas Valincius.
The Bulldogs from Athens, owners of the SEC’s top offense, added three more runs in the fifth inning to extend their lead to 7-2.
Mississippi State began chipping away again in the sixth. Valincius launched a solo home run before Bryce Chance delivered an RBI single to trim the deficit 7-4. Georgia responded with another run in the top of the seventh to make it 8-4.
In the bottom of the seventh, Mississippi State needed just 10 pitches from Georgia reliever Zach Brown to hit back-to-back-to-back home runs, courtesy of Ace Reese, Noah Sullivan, and Jacob Parker. The score at the end of the frame was 8-7 in Georgia’s favor.
Parker struck again in the eighth, launching a two-run homer with Reese aboard to give Mississippi State its first lead of the game at 9-8.
The lead was short-lived, though, as Georgia’s Brennan Hudson knocked in Kenny Ishikawa with a game-tying RBI single to force extra innings. SEC Player of the Year Daniel Jackson then delivered the decisive blow in the top of the 10th with a two-run home run – his 31st of the season – before Justin Byrd retired Mississippi State in the bottom of the frame to close the game out.
Byrd (5-2) earned the win for Georgia with two innings of scoreless ball and two strikeouts. Tyler Pitzer (2-3) took the loss for Mississippi State, giving up two runs in 2.1 innings.
While Georgia is off to Omaha for the first time since 2008, Mississippi State’s campaign ends with its most wins since notching 50 during its 2021 national championship campaign.
