Video: Mississippi State Baseball Sweeps Arkansas, Wins Outright SEC Regular Season Title

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI Sports/MSU Athletics) – The No. 4 Mississippi State baseball team has gone from worst to first.

The Bulldogs won the SEC regular season title outright Saturday as it finished a home sweep of Arkansas with a 9-4 victory. State has won nine conference series after finishing in last place in the SEC in 2015. It’s the first conference title for MSU since 1989, when now head coach John Cohen was a player for the Bulldogs.

MSU won the school’s 11th Southeastern Conference regular-season championship with a 9-4 victory against Arkansas before 8,421 cowbell-ringing fans Saturday at Dudy Noble Field.

“We talked all year about having a chip on your shoulders,” MSU head coach John Cohen said. “We challenged our kids to go out and get better during the summer. We had some new pieces who came in and made contributions. This has been a great evening for Mississippi State baseball.

“Mississippi State has always been a special place to me. To play for a conference championship team when I was in school and then to come back to win one as a coach is special. We still have a lot of business to take care of this year. However, this is a remarkable accomplishment.”

MSU improved to 40-14-1 overall and 21-9 in league play. Arkansas will finish 26-29 and 7-23. The Bulldogs won the conference championship by half-a-game over South Carolina and won the Western Division championship by one full game over Texas A&M.

It was the first SEC regular-season championship since the 1989 championship team, which had Cohen in the starting lineup. The Bulldogs had not won a division title under the present format.

With the title, Cohen became the second head coach in SEC history to win a conference championship at multiple SEC programs, joining former MSU head coach Ron Polk. Cohen captured a Co-SEC Championship with Kentucky in 2006. Polk captured SEC titles at Mississippi State, as well as Georgia.

MSU will be the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament, which begins Tuesday in Hoover, Ala. MSU will face either Kentucky or Alabama at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the third game of the tournament’s second round.

MSU will carry an 11-game win streak to Hoover. The Bulldogs finished the regular season by winning a school-record nine conference games, including three straight sweeps for the first time since 1989. The 21 league wins also sets a new school record.
The Bulldogs have now won 40 or more games three times under Cohen.

On championship Saturday, MSU actually erased a 2-0 deficit with single scores in the second and third innings.

The Bulldogs then surged ahead with four runs on two hits, with two Arkansas errors, in the fifth inning. A two-out double by Gavin Collins put the Maroon and White on top for good at 3-2. Arkansas’ second error in the frame led to three runs being scored for a 6-2 lead.

MSU then put the contest away with three runs in the seventh inning on an RBI-single by John Holland and two-run single by Jack Kruger.

For the contest, the Bulldogs finished with 12 hits. Jake Mangum, Kruger and Jacob Robson each had three hits. Holland had two hits.

Ryan Rigby (5-1) earned the win with 4 2/3 innings of relief, in place of starter Konnor Pilkington. Pilkington was touched for a two-run home run by Arkansas third baseman Clark Eagan in the first inning.

Rigby relieved in the third inning and allowed only two hits with six strikeouts. Daniel Brown and Blake Smith finished the contest. Smith got back-to-back strikeouts in the ninth inning to set off a wild