Tulane Baseball Travels to Biloxi to Challenge #3 Mississippi State Tonight
The Tulane baseball team (9-7) plays a neutral site contest in Biloxi, Miss. against No. 3 Mississippi State (14-2) on Tuesday, March 10, starting at 6 p.m. at Kessler Federal Park. The team is in the stretch of four straight games against ranked opponents after playing three against No. 17 TCU over the weekend. The game against Mississippi State will be broadcasted on the SEC Network+ and on 88.3 WRBH -FM.
Pitching Matchup
Tulane is slated to start junior righty Jack Brafa. Brafa is 1-0 on the year with 4.00 ERA. This will be his sixth appearance and his second start. In nine innings worked he has struck out 13 while limiting opponents to a .167 batting average against. He is in his first year at Tulane after transferring from Tennessee Tech.
Mississippi State is slated to start left-handed pitcher Charlie Foster. Foster is making his fifth appearance of the season and third start. He has struck out 12 in 6.2 innings worked with a 4.05 ERA.
Scouting Mississippi State
Mississippi State comes in ranked in each of the four polls. They moved up to No. 3 in both D1 Baseball and the USA Today Coaches Poll this week. The team swept Lipscomb over the weekend by a combined score of 43-7. The only two losses the Bulldogs have suffered this season came to fellow ranked opponents in then No. 1 UCLA and then No. 10 Southern Miss by a combined two runs.
Mississippi State sports a very balanced offensive attack with 10 different players already having reached double figures in RBIs. Reed Stallman leads the club with his .452 batting average. He has seven extra base knocks (four doubles and three home runs) on his 14 hits plus has driven in 16. Bryce Chance is hitting .429 with 18 runs scored, 18 hits, four doubles, and 10 RBIs. Ace Reese is also hitting over .400 (.406) with 24 runs, 26 hits, 10 doubles, four home runs, 21 RBIs and 48 total bases. Noah Sullivan leads the team with his five home runs and 11 walks.
Tomas Valincius is 3-0 on the campaign with 26 strikeouts in 20.2 innings worked. Ryan McPherson is also 3-0 on the year. He has 28 strikeouts in 23 innings worked. Duke Stone is the third member of starting staff with a 3-0 mark. He also has fanned. Jack Gleason has been the top reliever with a 1-0 record and 17 strikeouts in 9.1 innings thrown.
The program is coached by Brian O'Connor. O'Connor is in his first year in charge of the Bulldogs after working as the head man at the University of Virginia the last 22 years. He won the 2015 Men's College World Series during his time with the Cavaliers.
Series History
Mississippi State leads the all-time series with Tulane by a 77-34 count since the first game of the series in 1904 with the Green Wave falling by 5-0 and 8-2 scores. The last time the two teams met saw Tulane win two-of-three from the Bulldogs in 2022 at home (3/4-6/22). The Green Wave won the final two games of the set by scores of 11-10 and 5-4.
Against the SEC
Tulane is 158-287 all-time against current members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Many of those games came when Tulane was still a member of the SEC. The most wins for the Green Wave against the SEC has come at the expense of Ole Miss with 39. Tulane first faced an SEC opponent in 1897 against Alabama. The only school in the SEC that Tulane has never faced off with is Kentucky.
Coming In On A Streak
Jason Wachs, despite seeing his hitting streak snapped at 23 games following the opening game of the season against LMU, has still now reached base safely in 42 consecutive games dating back to the end of last season.
Who's Hot in the Last Five Games
- Hugh Pinkney is hitting .444
- Jason Wachs sports a .375 batting average with four runs, six hits, two doubles, six RBis, and five walks.
- Matthias Haas is hitting .313 with five hits, a home run, a double, and four RBIs.
- Jake Toporek has thrown 3.2 innings with three strikeouts.
- Tom Vincent has appeared in three games. He unscored upon with a 1-0 record and a save.
Ripples
- Dating back to the end of last season, three of last four hits that James Agabedis III has are home runs.
- Jason Wachs has reached base safely in all 16 games this season
- Matthias Haas has reached base safely in each of the last 12 games.
- Nate Johnson is hitting .462 with nine RBIs in games her starts.
- Tulane is 7-2 this year in games that Hugh Pinkney starts behind the plate.
- The program is also 3-0 in games that Matthias Haas starts as the designated hitter.
- Haas has started at four different positions this season with five games at first, five games at third, three games in right field and three games as the designated hitter.
- After leading the American Conference last season with 131 doubles as team, Tulane is again leading the league in two-baggers with 39 in the first 16 games.
- The program's pitching is averaging an impressive 9.4 strikeouts per game to place fifth in the American Conference. Tulane ranked second in the league in strikeouts a year ago with an average of 9.8 per contest.
- Of the 23 new players on the roster this season, 19 have already made their Tulane debuts following the first 16 games of the season. The only newbies that haven't appeared in a game yet this season are RHP Max Mazinter, OF Cole Berge, OF/3B Matthew Major, and RHP Owen Geiss.
Individual Conference Leader
- Tanner Chun leads the American Conference in hit by pitches (8). He is second in walks (15) and stolen bases (9).
- Jason Wachs is second in the league in RBIs (22) and doubles (7).
- Jack Frankel leads in complete games with one.
- J.D. Rodriguez leads the conference in wins (3).
- Jude Abbadessa, Rodriguez, and Sam Larson are tied for fifth in appearances (7).
- Kaikea Harrison is fifth in the league in runs scored (19).
- Tye Wood is fifth in sacrifice flies (3).
- Chun, AJ Groeneveld and Nate Johnson are tied for third in triples (1).
- Tom Vincent is third in the conference in saves (2).
- Trey Cehajic is seventh in strikeouts (25).
- Cehajic, Beau Sampson and Frankel are tied for the lead in starts (4).
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.