Former Mississippi State Baseball SID Bo Carter covered the tournament this past weekend for the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Good material from a former Bulldog!! Click below to read the article.
By Bo Carter, Bcarter@footballfoundation.com – Sports Page DFW, The Texas Sports Daily
ARLINGTON, Texas – Take six teams ranked among the Top 12 nationally in NCAA Division I baseball.
Add in 60-plus possible future professional prospects and the traditions of six diamond powerhouses with enthusiastic fans driven a little stir-crazy by bizarre winter weather throughout the Southwest and Southeast last week.
Stir gently with some traditional Southwest Conference baseball rivalries among Arkansas-Texas, Arkansas-Texas Tech and Arkansas-TCU going back as far as the 1970s SWC postseason tourney and regular-season tussles between 1897-1930 and 1947-69 (UA dropped baseball from 1931-46), and fans had a recipe for a superb weekend of college baseball.
It has been the inaugural State Farm Big 12-Southeastern Conference Challenge with enough intrigue to remake the movie “Pride of the Yankees.” In fact, TCU featured Gehrig Mosiello, son of Frogs assistant coach Bill Mosiello and aptly named after the Baseball Hall of Fame Yankees slugger and Columbia football-baseball great Lou Gehrig.
And though the nation’s most highly-rated opening tournament was delayed by severe weather in the area until a Saturday-Monday format, fans got their money’s worth with 16,908 paid partisans Saturday and 17,587 in the park Sunday.
Among the notable happenings of the first two days:
Mississippi State pitchers struck out what is believed to be a school opening-day record 18 Texas hitters (also thought be a high K’s total by any Longhorns squad in the opener) in an 8-3 triumph to start a 3-0 opening day/night run for the SEC.
Bulldogs’ designated hitter Luke Hancock belted the first home run by a college player at the site of the 2020 MLB Playoffs and World Series won by the Los Angeles Dodgers in November. MSU outfielder Rowdey Jordan (not related to Auburn football-basketball-baseball star and NFF College Hall of Fame football and basketball head coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan) became the first player to launch a pair of home runs in his first two games. Rowdey Jordan entered the tourney with 13 homers in his first 140 games for the Bulldogs and a personal-high seven dingers in 57 contests as a freshman in 2018.
MSU relief pitcher Landon Sims struck out 10 of the 12 Longhorns while striking out the side after entering the encounter in the fifth inning and getting the pitching victory.
“He (Sims) may have been our hottest pitcher coming into the season,” said Bulldogs head coach Chris Lemonis. “He has the versatility to come out of the bullpen and help us in so many ways.”
Texas designated hitter Ivan Melendez became the first Big 12 player to launch a homer at the spacious facility in that same game.
Later Saturday Ole Miss won its 17th consecutive game (going back to a 16-game winning skein in 1960) 7-3 over TCU behind the tight end-sized Ben Van Cleve (6-3, 265 pounds) with a pair of hits (including a two-run double) in three official trips and three RBI from 2B Peyton Chatagnier.
“We really attacked the fastball of (TCU starter Johnny) Ray in the second inning and got that four-run rally going,” stated Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco, the former LSU star and in his 21st season at the UM helm – the longest tenure of any baseball, football or basketball head coach in the competitive SEC.
In an interesting twist of fate, longtime Rebels NFF College Hall of Fame football head coach Johnny Vaught (1947-70, 73) was an All-Southwest Conference and All-America guard for TCU in 1932. Vaught was a standout and valedictorian at Fort Worth Poly High School – just west of the famed Texas Wesleyan U. campus. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on the Ole Miss campus memorializes the Rebels most successful football coach.
Arkansas then kept the SEC streak alive with a 13-9 dramatic comeback over Texas Tech in a clash that ended in the very early hours of Sunday morning.
The Razorbacks rallied for five runs in the top of the ninth inning to overcome a 9-8 Tech advantage and were paced offensively by shortstop Jason Battles with a 3-for-5 evening and three RBI. The sixth UA pitcher on the night Elijah Trest earned the win with three innings of two-hit work and four strikeouts.
Tech got a three-run homer out of catcher Braxton Fulford and three additional RBI by third baseman Cal Conley.
In Game 4 TCU finally broke the SEC nexus with a 3-2 triumph over Mississippi State in the most well pitched tussle of the meet. 6-9 TCU starter Russell Smith, possibly the tallest college or pro player to pitch in Arlington besides Hall of Famer Randy Johnson in the 1980s and 1990s, fired 5-plus innings as the TCU starter and held on for the win despite Jordan’s solo shot for the Dawgs. It was the first baseball meeting of the two storied programs in a combined 255 seasons between the schools.
In Game 5 Ole Miss extended its winning streak to 18 games since February 2020 with a 5-4 triumph over Texas Tech. The Rebels got a two-run homer by freshman Jacob Gonzales while starting pitcher Gunnar Hoglund struck out 11 Red Raiders batsmen over five-plus frames. Tech catcher-first baseman Nate Rombach of the DFW-famed Rombach baseball family poled a two-run homer for Tech in the second inning. Five UM pitchers kept the Raiders at bay with 16 strikeouts and just six hits.
In Sunday’s finale, two Arkansas pitchers accounted for the gem of the tourney with a 4-0 victory over longtime SWC rival before UA left for the SEC in 1991 Texas. Brady Slavens provided all the runs the Hogs needed with a three-run circuit clout while starter Peyton Pallette (five innings, eight whiffs) and saving relief ace Caleb Bolden (four innings, seven punchouts) combined for 15 strikeouts in a two-hit masterpiece.
That gave the SEC a 5-1 advantage and a clinching of tournament superiority through two days with three remaining encounters Monday.
Monday’s menu features Mississippi State and Texas Tech at 10 a.m. (CST) before Ole Miss and Texas tangle at 2 p.m. and Arkansas and TCU squaring off at 6 p.m.