With a combined one loss between the two schools, Mississippi State and Arizona State would meet in the first game of the Amegy Bank College Baseball Classic at Globe Life Stadium on Friday afternoon. Mississippi State, the 4th-ranked team in the country, would be taking a perfect 9-0 record into the game with Arizona State on Friday morning, as the Bulldogs would look to slow down the Sun Devils explsoive bats riding the high of splitting a midweek series with the Sooners of Oklahoma. For Arizona State, the chance to once again prove that they’re back to being normal Arizona State would present itself with the matchup with Mississippi State on Friday in a highly anticipated pitchers’ duel between the Bulldogs and Sun Devils. 

Starting on the mound for Mississippi State would be the normal Friday starter, Ryan McPherson, while for Arizona State, Cole Carlon. Carlon would have a solid four innings before the Mississippi State bats awoke from slumber with a four-run bottom of the 5th inning to take a 4-0 lead over the Sun Devils. With three earned runs on the board, Carlon saw his day end after 4.2 innings while managing to strike seven Mississippi State batters. Josh Butler and Eli Buxton would come in to pitch, giving up a combined four runs togother would see the Mississippi State lead extend to 7-1 through six innings. Ryan McPherson went seven complete innings, giving up one run on four hits and striking out five, just a really good day for McPherson on Friday against the Sun Devils. 

For the Bulldogs, in what started as a slow game with the bats turned into an onslaught of runs starting in the bottom of the 5th inning with a combination of timely hitting and then a three-run homerun off the bat of Gehrig Frei to take a 4-0 lead over Arizona State through five complete innings. From there, base hits from Chone James and Reed Stallman would extend the Bulldogs’ lead to 7-0 over the Sun Devils through six complete innings. Arizona State would run in the top half of the 6th and again at the top of the 8th to cut the Mississippi State lead to 7-2. Aidan Teel would add another run to the scoreboard in the bottom of the 8th with a solo shot in the bottom of the 8th to make it 8-2 in favor of the Bulldogs. Dominic Longo would send one to left field for a solo home run for Arizona State in the top half of the 9th inning to the Bulldogs a lead of 8-3. Dominic Smaldino would send a solo shot to left center for Arizona State with two outs in the 9th to cut the Mississippi State lead to 8-4. 

Despite being ranked 4th in the country, many people doubted this Mississippi State team as good as advertised due to the lesser quality opponents played to this point in the season, but the Bulldogs survived their first test of the weekend with a monster statement win over a pesky Arizona State team, now the Bulldogs get chance to do more of the same on Saturday with a matchup with Virginia Tech, before Sunday’s possible College World Series preview matchup with the Bruins of UCLA. We talked about this the other day, but Mississippi State going 2-1 this weekend would be huge for the Bulldogs, but a perfect 3-0 weekend would send a reounding messge to the rest of the college baseball world that Mississippi State is not only a good team, but is a team deserving of early excitment to be among the favorites to win another National Championship. I know it’s early, but Mississippi State has a winner at Head Coach, and he has brought that culture to Starkville, and with that, Mississippi State looks the way that Mississippi State should look this early in the season. What’s scary for opponents is that the only way Mississippi State can continue to go is up, and depending on what happens this weekend, the conversation around the country could easily shift to bumping Mississippi State to the number one ranking. 

Mississippi State will face Virginia Tech in the second game of the day on Saturday with an expected first pitch around 3:00 at Globe Life Stadium.