Mississippi State's season ends with loss in College World Series

OMAHA, Neb. — Jake Mangum squatted in the on-deck circle chewing on his batting glove as Jordan Westburg stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs, the Bulldogs trailing 5-2 in the bottom of the ninth.

An entire stadium, 21,000-plus strong, stood and held its breath on every pitch from Oregon State closer Jake Mulholland.

You just knew there had to be some magic left in the tank for this Mississippi State team, down to it's last strike for the third time in this miraculous post-season run to the cusp of the championship series. Something special was about to happen.

And then it didn't.

Westburg hit the 1-2 pitch hard at OSU shortstop Cadyn Grenier, who scooped the grounder and tossed to second for the force out that put the dagger in Mississippi State's national title dreams. Just like that, Oregon State preserved the 5-2 win, and Cinderella's rally banana turned back into a pumpkin.

Several Bulldogs lingered on the field long after the game ended, embracing fans, family and each other and reflecting on a season that started the forced resignation of former head coach Andy Cannizaro — a situation the man who replaced him and got MSU here, Gary Henderson, called "humiliating and "total nonsense."

"One-hundred and 23 days ago, we started on a journey with these guys," said Henderson, who brought his entire staff to the post-game press conference. "... It's been an unbelievable time in my life, for a guy like me who has coached as long as I have and never been close to anything like this."

The questions turned immediately to the future of the program and whether Henderson thought he'd be a part of it.

"I'm really optimistic," Henderson said. "That's coach (John) Cohen's decision, but I'm optimistic about it. We're kind of in, and we'd like to stay there. I love this assistant coach staff that we have. We'd like to stay and make a run at it.

"It's a great place. Who wouldn't want to be the baseball coach at Mississippi State? I do."

They may very well get a chance to do that, but they'll still look back at this post-season run and wonder what could have been. These guys were one big swing — and one more banana rally — away from making it to the title series. There, they would have faced an Arkansas team the Bulldogs swept back in April.

But they couldn't get past Oregon State (53-11-1). The Beavers, loaded with talent on the mound and in the lineup, were just too good.

Beaver freshman pitcher Kevin Abel's stellar performance would have been impressive in April against a run-of-the-mill Pac 12 opponent. Instead, his best start of the year came against the SEC schedule-hardened Bulldogs on college baseball's biggest stage. He limited the Bulldogs to one run on three hits over seven innings, walking three and striking out five.

"You've got to give them a lot of credit for the way they pitched the last two days," Henderson said. "

Mississippi State finished the game with just four hits, but it had opportunities to get some runs and, for one reason or another, could not.

What really stings is that the MSU pitching was good enough to win against this impressive Beaver lineup. Oregon State put together one big inning against MSU starter Ethan Small. It came in the third, all with two outs.

Adley Rautschman brought home one run with a single up the middle with two men on, and Michael Gretler followed with another RBI single. It looked like Small might be able to limit the damage to two runs, but designated hitter Tyler Malone's three-run homer widened the gap to five.

"One thing that stands out about them is they hit mistakes really well," Small said. "I've pitched against similar teams like Florida and Arkansas, and they hit pitches left over the middle. I made a few of those and they hit them, so hats off to them. But I competed best I could, and you just come up short sometimes."

MSU reliever Cole Gordon took over for Small in the fifth and held the Beavers scoreless on one hit with no walks over the final 4 1/3 innings. Gordon finished his season with 16 consecutive scoreless innings.

But the damage was already done, and the Bulldogs never could get anything going offensively against Abel.

It was a disappointing finish, but as junior center fielder Jake Mangum pointed out, the team came a long way to just be in this position.

"It's a story that's unbelievable," Mangum said. "You kept thinking we're so close to the school's first national championship. It sucks to fall short, but it was an unbelievable ride and this team was a lot of fun to play with."