Baseball: Louisiana Drops Midweek to No. 2 Mississippi State

 MISSISSIPPI STATE 4, LOUISIANA 0

STARKVILLE, Miss. – The Louisiana Baseball team fell to No. 2 Mississippi State, 4-0, in a true pitchers duel on Wednesday night.

Louisiana (9-5) outhit Mississippi State in the game, but was unable to plate any runs in the contest.

Mississippi State (10-3) took a quick lead in the first inning, scoring two unearned runs off Austin Perrin (0-1).

The Cajuns made an error on the first play of the game, which ultimately led the Bulldogs to score on a sacrifice fly and wild pitch to take a 2-0 lead.

Mississippi State’s starting pitcher Houston Harding (2-1) was sharp all night. Through five innings, Harding picked up eight strikeouts against the Cajuns while only allowing one walk.

Louisiana did give Harding some trouble in the third inning by getting runners on first and second, but it could not do anything with it as Connor Kimple lined out to right field, doubling off Louisiana.

Tyler Robertson picked up two of Louisiana’s seven hits on the night in the third and sixth inning, but the Ragin’ Cajuns couldn’t bring home the leadoff man.

Louisiana hung with one of the toughest teams in the country on the mound, going toe-to-toe with one of the hardest hitting lineups in the SEC.

In a total bullpen effort from the Cajuns, Connor Cooke led the way in innings pitched with 2.2 and also retired one batter on strikes.

Blake Marshall had a solid pitching performance against a couple of SEC-lefty bats and even struck out Josh Hatcher.

Mississippi State earned two more runs in the sixth inning on another wild pitch and fly out. Even though it went down as a fly out in the book, Robertson robbed Luke Hancock from extra bases by making a Willie Mays-type over-the-shoulder grab in center field.

Louisiana did not go down without a fight in the eighth and ninth innings as Josh Cofield, who is becoming a key bat for Louisiana, smashed a double down the left field line and Drake Osborn also ripped a double to left field.

Even with the two extra base hits in the late innings, the Cajuns fell 4-0.

Louisiana will start a three-game series with Southern Miss this weekend. The game will be televised on CUSA.tv.