Harding, Sims pitch Mississippi State into super regionals
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Jun. 7—STARKVILLE — Houston Harding and Landon Sims pitched Mississippi State to its fifth-straight super regional appearance on Monday afternoon.
No. 1-seed MSU beat No. 3 Campbell, 6-5, in the Starkville regional championship at Dudy Noble Field. The Bulldogs (43-15) swept the regional series and beat all three visiting teams.
Mississippi State, the No. 7 national seed, now advances to a super regional series against No. 10 Notre Dame this weekend in Starkville.
"I feel we are in a really good spot," head coach Chris Lemonis said. We played really good baseball most of these games. We pitched and defended at a high level and had lot of big swings. I like where we are at. We have a tough weekend coming up."
Lemonis started freshman Jackson Fristoe on the mound, but his appearance was short-lived. He pitched only 1/3 of an inning and gave up three runs before he was pulled for Harding.
Harding then pitched five innings and gave up only two earned runs, both in the sixth inning, and struck out a career-high 10 Campbell batters. He pitched a perfect second, fourth and fifth inning, and only ran into trouble in the third and sixth.
In the third inning, Harding walked two batters and allowed a single to load the bases with no outs before he bounced back and struck out the side to leave with no damage.
He allowed back-to-back singles in the sixth and was pulled for Preston Johnson with one out and both runners in scoring position. Both runners came around to score, but Mississippi State still led 6-5 after six innings.
"There's so many games that he has done that for us," Lemonis said of Harding. "He's really talented and has a great makeup. I was just worried he was going to sweat too much. We looked up there and he was entirely drenched in sweat. He pitched great."
Landon Sims took over in the bottom of the seventh inning and allowed only two hits in three scoreless innings.
He allowed a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth inning but buckled down with a strikeout and two groundouts to secure his ninth save of the year.
"He ambushed that fastball right there, but baseball is a game of the next pitch and I could control if he stayed right there," Sims said of the leadoff double. "I knew if I got a strikeout right there, some swings and misses to that next hitter, we were going to be in a pretty good spot to keep that guy on the basepaths."
Third baseman Kamren James was named the regional MVP after his 2-5 day at the plate. He hit a RBI-double and two-run home run that gave Mississippi State a 4-3 lead in the third inning.
Logan Tanner's solo home run in the fifth inning gave MSU a 6-3 lead.
James, Rowdey Jordan and Tanner Allen each had two hits in the game after each having three hits on Saturday night.
Jordan finished the weekend with eight total hits and four doubles while Tanner Allen had multiple hits in all three games as well.
