Pilkington to pitch for Bulldogs only a few miles from his home
Konnor Pilkington grew up just a few miles away from the Southern Mississippi campus in Hurley.
Summers were spent taking in coach Scott Berry’s baseball camps and he learned a thing or two from the USM staff. Years later, he’ll be wearing a jersey of another in-state school quite possibly looking to beat Berry’s Golden Eagles.
Pilkington won’t be “at home” per se when he steps on the mound for the Hattiesburg Regional this weekend. It’ll be close enough as the Mississippi State pitcher will toe the rubber against either South Alabama, Southern Miss or IllinoisChicago looking to keep the postseason alive for the Bulldogs in the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Pilkington said. “Southern Miss is only an hour or so from my house so I’ll have a lot of family coming, South Alabama is a really good team and so is Southern Miss, obviously, since they’re hosting. South Alabama won their conference tournament so they’ll really grind it out.”
MSU faced off against South Alabama three times already this season taking a 2-1 edge on the Jaguars. The two teams played just once against Southern Miss, a two-run loss in Pearl, and that came back in April. Pilkington pitched one game against the Jaguars going 7.2 strong frames as he surrendered just four hits and no runs while striking out a careerhigh 13 batters and walking two.
He said playing the Golden Eagles and Jaguars this weekend has its pros and cons.
“It’s an advantage for us, but also a disadvantage, because they probably have a good little scouting report on us,” Pilkington said. “In the end, it doesn’t really matter. It’s playoff baseball and anything can happen.”
The sophomore lefty has the advantage of pitching, quite possibly, his best baseball of the year. In his last three starts, Pilkington has thrown 22 innings and given up just two runs, striking out 14 batters and handling a 2-1 record.
He’s just two strikeouts away from breaking 100 this season and five innings shy of being a 100-inning hurler. He has been the Bulldogs’ ace pitcher from game one against Texas Tech and the one constant on a pitching staff that has been shaky at best.
His last few games have given him a reason to believe that the best is yet to come in the postseason.
“It boosts my confidence a lot being able to locate my pitches better,” Pilkington said. “We have six or seven guys that we know we can roll out there at any point in the game. We’re going to go from there and if that doesn’t work, we have to deal with it. I’m going to go as long as I can and give it all I’ve got.”
MSU head coach Andy Cannizaro knows that Pilkington is the horse of the staff and he’ll be used to give it the best chance to get a good start. Whether he has enough faith and other pitchers to take on South Alabama in game one remains to be seen.
“We wanted to see where we going, who we were matched up with, before we made any type of announcements in terms of pitching staff,” Cannizaro said. “South Al is extremely aggressive on offense. One through nine in their order is capable of beating you at any point in the game. We’ve got a lot of preparation to do this week.”
Whether he throws Friday’s game one or game two with either a championship appearance on the line or elimination,
it makes no difference to the lefty.
The big 6-3, 225-pounder is just ready for another shot on the mound.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Pilkington said of his presumed
start. “Whenever it is, I’m going to roll out there and give them 110 percent effort and leave it all on the field.”