Video: Texas A&M Wins All Three At Mississippi State Baseball With Sunday Victory

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (MSU Athletics) – Unable to match the offensive firepower from No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 8 Mississippi State dropped the final game of a Southeastern Conference baseball series, 10-5, at Dudy Noble Field on Sunday.

After winning four-straight conference series to start the season, MSU was unable to manage a win against Texas A&M. The Aggies capped a remarkable offensive weekend by totaling 30 runs and 47 base hits to help spoil Super Bulldog Weekend.

The Sunday game drew a crowd of 8,786, while the three-game weekend series finished with a total of 33,896. It was the largest three-game series crowd since the 2014 Super Bulldog Weekend.

Texas A&M improved to 29-7 overall and 10-5 in league play with its sixth-straight conference win. MSU fell to 24-12-1 and 8-7. The Bulldogs are tied for third place in the Western Division standings.

“Texas A&M is a really solid offensive team,” MSU head coach John Cohen said. “They do a good job and they are hot. We didn’t help ourselves on the mound to be honest. We have half the SEC season left, so hopefully the kids will respond in the right way.”

Texas A&M built a 2-0 lead in the second inning. After the Bulldogs scored in the third inning, the Aggies stretched the lead to 4-1 with single scores in the fourth and fifth. MSU grabbed a 5-4 lead with four runs in the seventh inning, only to see Texas A&M respond with four runs of its own in the eighth inning and two more scores in the ninth.

The Aggies scored 15 of their 30 runs in the final two innings of play during the series.

“Some of it was luck,” Cohen said. “Some of it was us in bad positions. I just don’t know if they could do that again in batting practice. Things will come back around for us. We have some kids who didn’t perform as well as they did in the first four weekends and we got to get them back there.”

In the third inning, Jake Mangum doubled, while Hunter Stovall and Gavin Collins drew walks. A passed ball scored the run.

In the seventh inning, the comeback started with a two-run home by Gavin Collins – his team-best seventh of the season. Nathaniel Lowe followed with a single. Brent Rooker tripled to bring home Lowe and Elih Marrero doubled for a 5-4 lead.

Texas A&M grabbed the lead for good on a two-run double by Hunter Melton during a four-run eighth inning.

MSU finished with 10 hits. Mangum had three, while Rooker and Marrero each had two.

Texas A&M finished with 17 hits. Nick Banks, Boomer White, J.B. Moss and Joel Davis each had three hits for the Aggies.

Reid Humphreys (0-1) took the loss with 2.2 innings of relief work. Konnor Pilkington drew the start but was lifted in the second inning. Ryan Rigby followed and worked five innings before giving way to Humphreys.

Mitchell Kilkenny (2-1) had the win in relief for Texas A&M.

The Bulldogs return to non-conference play with their first-ever game at MGM Park on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. MSU faces Louisiana-Monroe at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Biloxi. From there, the road trip continues with a three-game conference series at LSU.