BULLDOG BITS
Men's Basketball
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Former Mississippi State basketball great Lawrence Roberts will be honored as the Bulldogs' Allstate Southeastern Conference Basketball Legend selection at the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville (March 13-17).
Roberts was a two-time ALL-SEC first-team selection during the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons at Mississippi State after he transferred from Baylor. He became MSU'S first consensus Allamerica first-team honoree since Bailey Howell in the late 1950's and was selected SEC Player of the Year in 2003-04.
Roberts is one of four players to average a double-double in their MSU career. He was an instrumental part to the Bulldogs winning the 2004 SEC regular season title.
Roberts was a second round pick by the Seattle Supersonics in the 2005 NBA Draft before being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies where he spent two seasons before spending several professional seasons in Europe.
Men's Golf
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – After a 111-day break, Mississippi State men's golf coach Dusty Smith and his team will play its first tournament of the spring this weekend at the Florida Gators Invitational.
State will play two opening rounds today before the tournament finishes with Sunday's third round at the par-70, 6,701-yard Mark Bostick Golf Course. Live results will be available via Golfstat.com.
The Gator Invitational
(Photo by Rogelio Solis, AP file)
field features nine Golfstat. com Top 100 players, including MSU'S Peng Pichaikool. In the fall, the junior took three top 10 finishes in as many events for the Bulldogs. More recently, Pichaikool was chosen to watchlists for the Haskins and Ben Hogan Awards. On Thursday, he was ranked third in the newest Arnold Palmer Cup International Team ranking.
Ranked 14th in Golfstat. com's Top 100, Pichaikool is the second-highest ranked player in the Florida Gators Invitational field, eclipsed only by No. 13 Steven Fisk of Georgia Southern.
Four more players fill in MSU'S lineup card. Senior Ross Bell is back in the starting five after leading the team at the Steelwood Collegiate Invitational, the final fall event for the Bulldogs. His fourth-place finish was a career-best and the second-best finish for any MSU individual this season.
Junior Garrett Johnson is set to start his 17th consecutive tournament, a streak that stretches back to the 2016-17 season. In the fall, Johnson sported a 71.67 stroke average and picked up tied-for-13th and tied-for-18th finishes.
Two freshmen, Ford Clegg and Austin Vukovits, get the nod for the weekend. Clegg played in all four of MSU'S tournaments during the fall and closed 2018 with a season-best tied-for-11th finish. Vukovits played in States' third event of the season, the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate, where he sunk a hole-in-one during the second round.
In the fall, the Golf Dawgs picked up two top-five finishes as team to begin year two of the coach Dusty Smith era, including a runner-up performance at the Steelwood Collegiate Invitational to close 2018.
The 15-team field includes No. 3 Vanderbilt, No. 19 North Florida, No. 29 Liberty, No. 38 West Virginia, No. 41 Georgia Southern, Coastal Carolina, Jacksonville, Michigan, Missouri, Princeton, Southern Illinois, UCF, USF and the host, No. 33 Florida.
The Bulldogs have played in Florida's home event 20 times since 1977, and its best performance came in 1989 when State finished as the runner-up.
Men's Tennis
CHICAGO – Despite extending its Ncaa-leading doubles point streak to 18 matches, the No. 3 Mississippi State men's tennis team dropped a tough 4-1 decision to No. 15 TCU in the opening round of the 2019 ITA National Team Indoor Championship Friday morning.
The Bulldogs (6-1) notched a pair of hardfought victories in doubles action to earn a quick 1-0 lead, but the Horned Frogs (5-2) surged back to take all six first sets in singles and go on to earn the win at the Midtown Athletic Club.
“TCU played great,” MSU head coach Matt Roberts said. “We got outplayed in singles today. We were exposed with our service games indoors, and TCU came after us. They served big and transitioned well. We fought well, it's what we do best—we battle and we fight. We feel good as a team. We're a close-knit group and we just have to get cleaner indoors. We have to play bigger and hold serve.”
The duo of Trevor Foshey and Gregor Ramskogler gave MSU a quick advantage in doubles action, taking a 6-2 victory over TCU'S Luc Fomba and Sander Jong on court 3. The Horned Frogs evened up the doubles count shortly after on court 2, with No. 48 Bertus Kruger and Reese Stalder posting a 6-3 win against MSU'S sixth-ranked Niclas Braun and Giovanni Oradini, setting up an exciting finish on court 1.
There, a tight battle waged between MSU'S No. 34 Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic and TCU'S Alastair Gray and Alex Rybakov, with both sides holding serve effectively to force a match tiebreaker. In the breaker, Borges and Rakic stormed out of the gate to a 4-1 lead before Gray and Rybakov cut the lead to 4-3. The Bulldog duo fought right back to go up 6-4, before the Horned Frog pair made it 6-5. Then, State's tandem buckled down, breaking at 6-5 to take the match and keep MSU'S doubles point streak alive at a nation-leading 18 matches dating back to the 2018 campaign.
“I'm really happy with our doubles,” Roberts said. “I loved how we fought in doubles today. We were down 5-0 on court 2 and cut it to 5-3. Nuno and Strahinja were tough in winning the breaker.”
TCU responded quite strongly in singles, however, taking all six first sets.
The Horned Frogs knotted things up at 1-all when Stalder earned a 6-1, 6-4 victory against Rakic on court 3. Moments later, Jong replicated Stalder's outcome with an identical score against MSU'S Florian Broska on court 6 to put TCU up 2-1.
Kruger, ranked 83rd nationally, put the Horned Frogs within striking distance of the win with a tight 7-5, 6-3 triumph against State's 64thranked Braun on court 4.
With second-set tiebreakers going on courts 1 and 5, TCU'S Fomba finished first, taking a 6-4, 7-6(3) decision against the 98th-ranked Bulldog Foshey at No. 5 after Foshey had broken back at 5-4 down in the second set to force the breaker. The Horned Frogs' eighth-ranked Rybakov led No. 5 Borges 7-6(5), 6-6 (1-0) on court 1, while Gray and MSU'S No. 66 Oradini were locked in a three-set battle on court 2 with Gray up 6-2, 3-6, 3-2 but Oradini up 40-love, when play was suspended.
Softball
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico – In a back-and-forth contest that went down to the wire, No. 25 Mississippi State softball used a three-run sixth inning to take down Sacramento State 8-5 on Friday at Nancy Almaraz Field.
With the game locked at 5-5 in the bottom of the sixth inning, redshirt sophomore Montana Davidson plated the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly before junior Fa Leilua added a two-run home run to give Mississippi State some breathing room.
Leilua closed the game going 2-for-3 with two home runs and a career-high five RBI. It was the second game this season that Leilu has recorded multiple home runs. Redshirt freshman Kinsey Goelz tallied two hits in the contest, both doubles, for the first base hits of her collegiate career.
MSU struck first in the bottom after getting two runners into scoring position after a Hornet error, senior Bevia Robinson grounded out to second to score Goelz to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead.
Sacramento State rallied in the top of the third using a walk, hit by pitch and a sacrifice bunt to put two runners in scoring position. Sophomore Emily Williams fired back with a strikeout, but the Hornets struck together a two-out rally with four singles to take a 4-1 lead.
The Bulldogs answered in the bottom of the third getting sophomore Mia Davidson on via an infield single before senior Sarai Niu drew a walk to bring Leilua to the plate. The junior slugged her first homer of the game with a no doubter to left field to lock the game up at 4-4 with one swing.