*Photo from the Clarion-Ledger*
The monkey is off the backs of the Mississippi State Bulldogs, they've finally won their first national title in school history. It was the baseball team that brought it home. Logan Tanner homered, the offense lit up, and Mississippi State defeated the Vanderbilt Commodores 9-0 on Wednesday night, winning the 2021 College World Series championship.
The Bulldogs got on the board in the first inning, with a sac fly from Luke Hancock giving them an early 1-0 lead to work with. In the second inning, an RBI ground out from Lane Forsythe and an RBI double from Rowdey Jordan gave the Bulldogs a 3-0 lead after two innings. In the 5th, Hancock added an RBI single to center field, and Tanner followed that up with an RBI single of his own, making it 5-0. In the 7th, a solo homer from Tanner and a 3 run homer from Kellum Clark gave the Bulldogs the 9-0 lead.
Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis said "You lose the first game of the series, and you're sitting there, and you know how bad our community, our school, our program wants this trophy. And we talked about it, I think it was Saturday night when we were having to play Texas, how it wouldn't be easy. Just hasn't been easy. When you're going to do something legendary for the first time, it was going to have to be tough. And it's pretty surreal right now."
Will Bednar got the start for Mississippi State with the title on the line, and boy did he deliver. Bednar threw 6 innings, no hitting the Vanderbilt offense, while walking 3 hitters and striking out 4 of them. Landon Sims then pitched the next 3 innings to get the save, allowing one hit and one walk, also striking out 4 hitters.
Bednar also received College World series MVP honors after the game. In his first start of the College World series, he racked up 15 strikeouts in 8 innings pitched, and, in this deciding game, threw 6 no hit innings on short rest to help the Bulldogs to their first national title in school history. In fact, the Vanderbilt pitcher he beat out was the last recipient of the MVP award.
It was ace pitcher and likely top 10 draft pick Kumar Rocker who took the loss for Vanderbilt in a tough start, allowing 5 runs on 6 hits and two walks, recording 6 strikeouts in just 4 1/3 innings pitched for the Commodores. After Rocker was done, Chris McElvain threw two innings, allowing the other 4 runs to score. Luke Murphy and Thomas Schultz also pitched, neither allowing a run.
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