No. 3 Mississippi State Baseball Falls in SEC Tournament Opener

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Allen moves hitting streak to 17 games, Hancock plates 52nd RBI of the season

HOOVER, Ala. – The No. 3 Mississippi State baseball program dropped its opening game at the SEC Tournament to No. 11 Florida, 13-1, on Wednesday (May 26) morning at the Hoover Met.

The team’s exchanged single runs in the first inning, before Florida (37-19) scored three in the second and five in the third to stake an early lead. A four-run seventh inning pushed the game to 13-1 and the game was final after the seventh inning, via the SEC Tournament’s run rule.

For Mississippi State (40-14), Tanner Allen extended his career-long hitting streak to 17 games with his 57tth career double in the first inning. The hit also extended his reached base streak to 20 games, as he finished the day with one hit and one run scored.

Luke Hancock added his 52nd RBI of the season with his base hit in the first inning and Logan Tanner moved his reached base streak to 17 games with his fourth inning single.

Brandon Smith (4-3) took the loss with six runs allowed on eight hits in two innings of work in the start. Cade Smith and Eric Cerantola posted scoreless outings out of the bullpen for MSU. Cade Smith worked two scoreless, hitless innings with just one walk. Cerantola fanned one, walked one and allowed one hit to work a scoreless sixth. 

For Florida, Hunter Barco (10-2) threw seven innings and allowed one run on four hits. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out two to earn the win. Kris Armstrong drove in four RBIs, and Jacob Young and Sterlin Thompson each plated three RBIs to pace the offense. In all, five Gators posted multi-hit games and the three aforementioned hitters collected multi-RBI contests.

Quotable

Head coach Chris Lemonis

On his message to the team after the game

CL: I just told them [we could not] blame the hole that we were in by pitching. That was the first thing, we are all accountable for this loss, including the head coach. The reality is, it’s tournament baseball. You can’t worry about what happened today. We have to go back and clear our minds and get ready to play. I challenged them because we’re a really good team. We’re a team that talks about going to Omaha, talks about winning it all. We just have to [show that mentality] tomorrow.

Scoring Recap

Top First

The first three hitters reached to load the bases, before a wild pitch allowed the first run of the game to score.

Florida 1, Mississippi State 0

Bottom First

Tanner Allen doubled with one out and came around to score on a Luke Hancock base hit.

Mississippi State 1, Florida 1

Top Second

A one-out sacrifice fly from Jacob Young started a three-run inning for the Gators. Kris Armstrong added a two-RBI single with two outs in the inning to push Florida back into the lead.

Florida 4, Mississippi State 1

Top Third

A five-run frame was started by Sterlin Thompson’s leadoff home run to right-center field. After a single, State made a pitching change and a walk put two on with no outs. A sacrifice bunt was followed by a two-RBI single for Young and Armstrong added a two-RBI double to cap the scoring for the inning.

Florida 9, Mississippi State 1

Top Seventh

After an error started the inning, back-to-back singles loaded the bases to set up Kendrick Calilao’s sacrifice fly. A Thompson’s two-RBI double and Josh Rivera’s RBI single capped the scoring. 

Florida 13, Mississippi State 1

Up Next

Mississippi State will play the loser of No. 3 Tennessee and Alabama at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 27 in an elimination game at the SEC Tournament. The game will be carried on the Mississippi State Radio Network and on SEC Network+ via the ESPN App.