Mississippi State practicing at MGM Park before Hancock Whitney Classic

In its quest to get back to national championship form, the Mississippi State baseball program once again coming through Biloxi as a part of the Hancock Whitney Classic at MGM Park.

This year, the Bulldogs taking on both Nicholls State and Louisiana at the home of the Biloxi Shuckers in a two-game mid-week series before starting SEC play Friday at Kentucky.

MSU has fared well on the Coast in recent years, going a combined 3-1 against Texas Tech in 2020 and 2022.

The vibes better in general this season, currently sitting on a record of 11-5 as opposed to 6-6 when the Diamond Dawgs were last in town.

In fact, MSU currently riding its first five-game winning steak since 2021 and fresh off its first weekend sweep since March 11th-13th of last year.

Head Coach Chris Lemonis calls this a business trip, but also values the importance of expanding that MSU footprint.  First baseman Hunter Hines said, “We’re coming together good. We’re a young team. We’re kind of a new team more than a young team, and it just kind of happens with teams that are new together that haven’t played together a long time. I think about the national championship year when I wasn’t here. They played together for years and years before they won it, and we’ve just kind of got the cohesiveness together and just kind of trying to get in the same direction now, playing good baseball.”

Coach Lemonis said, “We played two games in Pearl. We play two games here. We’re usually playing in Oxford in the northern part of our state, so I mean we’re trying to cover the whole state. We talk to our kids all the time, all our fans can’t come to the Dude, so sometimes, this is the only place that they can come, and so it’s kind of a neat thing for our fans and it’s a fun experience. My first year we did spring break in Starkville, and we barely had anybody there, and we just made a choice that we wanted to come here and everybody here with the Shuckers has been great and they’ve taken care of us so we love coming back.”

MSU takes on Nicholls State at 6 p.m. tomorrow and then Louisiana at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Local players on the team include D’Iberville’s Logan Forsythe, Vancleave’s Max Miller, and East Central’s Hollis Porter.