STARKVILLE – The road back to Omaha will begin in a familiar place for No. 17 Mississippi State.
Five years after turning a postseason run through Dudy Noble Field into the program’s first national championship, the Diamond Dawgs are back hosting in Starkville and carrying the No. 1 seed into this weekend’s NCAA Regional. MSU opens against No. 4 seed Lipscomb at 1 p.m. Friday on ESPN+, looking to turn one of college baseball’s best home-field advantages into the first step of another June push.
Mississippi State returns to the NCAA Tournament for the third straight season and for the 42nd time in program history. State is hosting a regional for the 16th time and for the first time since 2021, when the Bulldogs hosted both a regional and super regional before winning the school’s first national championship.
The Starkville Regional features No. 1 seed Mississippi State, No. 2 seed Cincinnati, No. 3 seed Louisiana and No. 4 seed Lipscomb. Cincinnati and Louisiana will meet at 6 p.m. Friday on ESPN+ after the Diamond Dawgs’ opener. Saturday’s elimination game is scheduled for 3 p.m., followed by the winner’s bracket game at 8 p.m. Game 5 will begin Sunday at 2 p.m., with Game 6 set for 7 p.m. A Monday game, if necessary, has not yet been assigned a time.
The regional winner will advance to face the winner of the Athens Regional.
Mississippi State enters the weekend 40-17 overall after building one of the nation’s most dangerous offensive clubs in Brian O’Connor’s first season in Starkville. The Bulldogs have already set a single-season school record with 106 home runs, breaking the previous mark of 103 set last season. MSU is batting .313 with a .544 slugging percentage and a .410 on-base percentage, giving State a lineup capable of changing games quickly.
The Diamond Dawgs have also won 11 games by the 10-run rule, swept six series and built a résumé that included SEC sweeps of Vanderbilt at home and Ole Miss and South Carolina on the road. State also leads the country in average attendance, drawing 11,780 fans per game at Dudy Noble Field this season.
Mississippi State’s power has come from throughout the order, but third baseman Ace Reese remains the centerpiece. The first-team All-American and first-team All-SEC selection is batting .327 with 73 hits, 20 home runs and 69 RBIs. Reese also leads the SEC with 21 doubles and has produced back-to-back 20-home run seasons.
Noah Sullivan gives MSU another first-team All-American bat in the middle of the order. Sullivan is hitting .348 with 12 home runs and 45 RBIs and was named to the SEC All-Tournament Team. Gehrig Frei is batting .329 with 68 hits, nine home runs and 41 RBIs, while Bryce Chance, the lone Bulldog on the roster who played at Mississippi State prior to 2025, is hitting .346 with 65 hits and 33 RBIs.
Freshman Jacob Parker has added immediate pop, batting .315 with 13 home runs and 51 RBIs. Reed Stallman has supplied 12 homers and 46 RBIs, and Ryder Woodson enters the regional as one of State’s hottest hitters, batting .467 over his last five games with two home runs and six RBIs.
MSU’s pitching staff has paired with that lineup to give the Bulldogs balance. State owns a 4.32 ERA and has struck out 627 batters in 488 innings. Opponents are hitting .238 against the Bulldogs, who rank among the national leaders in strikeouts per nine innings and strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Sophomore right-hander Duke Stone is scheduled to start Friday’s opener against Lipscomb left-hander Alexander Llinas. Stone is 6-3 with a 5.69 ERA, 92 strikeouts and 26 walks in 68 innings. He has already faced the Bisons once this season, throwing four perfect innings with six strikeouts during Mississippi State’s 26-0 win on March 7.
Stone’s season has also included one of the Bulldogs’ best SEC starts. He struck out a career-high 12 and worked a career-long six shutout innings in a win at South Carolina on April 18, a performance that earned him SEC Co-Pitcher of the Week honors.
Llinas enters 6-4 with a 5.40 ERA, 61 strikeouts and 31 walks for a Lipscomb team that went 29-24 overall and 19-11 in ASUN play. The Bisons hit .292 as a team with a .380 on-base percentage, 99 doubles, 16 triples and 32 home runs.
The opener will also bring a familiar opponent back to Dudy Noble Field. Mississippi State is 12-0 all-time against Lipscomb and swept the Bisons in Starkville earlier this season. The Bulldogs won 8-3 on March 5, 9-4 on March 6 and 26-0 in a seven inning one-hit shutout on March 7.
State is 19-3 all-time against the entire Starkville Regional field. The Bulldogs are 3-0 against Cincinnati and 4-3 against Louisiana.
Cincinnati enters the regional 37-20 overall and 17-13 in the Big 12. The Bearcats bring another ranked team to Starkville and are batting .300 with 84 home runs, 97 doubles and 115 stolen bases. Louisiana arrives 39-23 overall and 16-14 in the Sun Belt with a pitching staff that owns a 4.88 ERA and a defense fielding .980.
But the focus for Mississippi State begins with Lipscomb, and with a chance to protect its home field in a tournament setting that has often brought out the best in the program.
O’Connor knows the stage well. He came to Starkville after 22 seasons at Virginia, where he led the Cavaliers to 18 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven College World Series trips and the 2015 national championship. In his first season at Mississippi State, he has guided the Bulldogs to 40 wins, a No. 1 regional seed and a return to postseason baseball at The Dude.
Now State gets the opportunity it spent the regular season earning — a regional at home, a rested pitching staff and a lineup powerful enough to put pressure on every opponent in the bracket.
For the Bulldogs, Friday is not just the start of the NCAA Tournament. It is the first chance to turn a season of progress under O’Connor into something bigger, in front of a fan base that has seen June baseball in Starkville lead all the way to the top before.
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