STARKVILLE – The postgame fireworks show had to wait 10 innings, but Mississippi State gave fans cause for celebration with a 6-5 walk-off victory over South Carolina to open SEC play.
It was the Bulldogs’ (20-8, 1-0 SEC) third extra-inning win of the year and fourth walk-off victory. Riley Hull was the hero after Paige Cook was intentionally walked to load the bases in a 5-4 ballgame. Hull grounded a ball up the middle to the second baseman, and two runs came home on the play to end the nearly-four-hour contest.
“For me, it was a little personal because my sister played for South Carolina,” Hull said. “And then while I was up there, their coach was screaming at their pitcher, ‘This is why you’re here,’ and I was like, ‘You know what? This is why I’m here, too.’ I just had to fight through for my team.”
Hull’s two-run single erased the deficit from the top half of the inning. After the Bulldogs tied the ballgame with a Jackie McKenna sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh, the teams went two scoreless frames. The Gamecocks (23-5, 1-3 SEC) used a first-and-third play to take the lead in the 10th, scoring just before the final out of the inning was tagged between first and second.
For State, it was a game of persistence and battling back. The Bulldogs found themselves in a 3-0 hole after the top of the first but hung a three-spot of their own in the third. South Carolina…
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