Bulldogs beat Southern Miss, strike out 20 batters
Mar. 4—PEARL — Houston Harding and the Mississippi State pitching staff had their best outing of the season on Wednesday night.
No. 3-ranked Mississippi State beat Southern Miss, 4-1, at Trustmark Park. The Mississippi State pitching staff struck out 20 Golden Eagles and allowed only three hits.
Harding (1-1) started on the mound and pitched five innings for the Bulldogs (6-2). He allowed only two hits, walked one batter, struck out nine batters, and allowed one earned run on 88 pitches.
Harding's start was the longest outing by a MSU starter this season.
"He gave us a great start," head coach Chris Lemonis said of Harding. "We haven't had a great start yet this season and it let us piece together the game how we wanted to. ... His change up is his best pitch. He's worked hard to develop his breaking ball against the lefty, and you saw it against the middle of their lineup."
Mississippi State and Southern Miss traded runs in the first few innings, but the Bulldogs took the lead in the bottom of the third and never looked back.
Brad Cumbest, starting in left field because Southern Miss (4-4) started a left-handed pitcher, led off the inning with a triple to right field and Rowdey Jordan hit a sacrifice fly to score him and put MSU up, 2-1.
The Bulldogs added its last two runs of the game in the bottom of the fifth inning. Scotty Dubrule hit an infield single and advanced to third base on a stolen base and throwing error. He scored on a single from Tanner Allen, then Allen scored on a RBI single from Logan Tanner.
With a 4-1 lead heading into the sixth, Harding was pulled and Preston Johnson entered the game for the first time this season.
He faced eight batters in two innings and allowed one hit and one walk, but struck out six batters. He threw 35 total pitches with 25 strikes.
"I was really impressed with our pitching staff, ..." Lemonis said. "We've been mixing it together. We haven't had Preston Johnson for two weeks and he was one of our better guys all year. He's going to be a big piece of that bullpen. We didn't have Stone Simmons, and he's back and throws a ton of strikes."
Cam Tullar entered in the eighth inning and struck out two batters and allowed no hits, and Stone Simmons earned the save in the ninth inning and struck out the side.
Mississippi State will host Kent State for a three-game series this weekend at Dudy Noble Field. The Golden Flashes were added to the schedule on Wednesday after Tennessee Tech had to cancel the weekend series due to COVID-19 issues.
