Mississippi State overcomes tumultuous season to make unexpected postseason run

BySAM KHAN JR.
June 22, 2018, 11:36 PM

OMAHA, Neb. -- After his team's second win in the College World Series on Tuesday, Mississippi State interim coach Gary Henderson was asked about his team's plans for the upcoming days.

The Bulldogs (39-27), by virtue of starting 2-0 in the tournament, earned two days off before having to take the field again on Friday versus Oregon State (3 p.m. ET, ESPN). Henderson noted that his team would practice twice, then his voice trailed off. He was confused.

"Uh, I'll be honest with you," Henderson said to a reporter, puzzled. "What day is today?"

You'll have to forgive him. His team -- like most others in Omaha -- have dealt with numerous weather delays that made the days run together. Furthermore, Henderson's plate was full as spring turned to summer. Four months ago, he had no idea he would be the head coach of a team that is one win away from the CWS final.

That all changed on Feb. 20, when former Mississippi State coach Andy Cannizaro was forced to resign. Henderson was thrust into the interim role and the Bulldogs -- who already had dealt with the inconveniences of makeshift fall practices and extended early-season road trips because of ongoing construction at Dudy Noble Field on the Starkville campus -- were in the midst of an unforeseen change just three games into what was supposed to be a promising season.

After consecutive trips to the NCAA super regionals, high expectations abounded for the Diamond Dawgs. When the coaching drama and other logistical headaches disrupted things, they limped to a 14-15 start, including a 2-7 conference record.

Something strange happened along the way. The Bulldogs clicked. They fought. They won. And now they're the most improbable story of the 2018 College World Series, a team that a month ago was in danger of missing its own conference tournament but has now scratched and clawed to the CWS semifinals with dramatic walk-off wins, timely pitching, a rally banana and a steady coaching staff that held it all together.

The Dawgs went from down-and-almost-out to the doorstep of history thanks to an unbreakable team bond and its unwavering belief.

"I mean, it's awesome," catcher Justin Foscue said. "We said back a long time ago that if we ever did this, they better make a 30 for 30 on us. So maybe we can win it all and they can do that."

For all the attention SEC football teams receive, its baseball programs are superb too. The conference sent three squads to Omaha, and two of them are 2-0 and a game away from making it an All-SEC final for the second straight season. The league has had at least one participant in the CWS final over nine of the past 10 seasons.

Mississippi State is one of the programs that is among the league's annual competitors. This is its 10th trip to Omaha and first since 2013. It's the only SEC program to play in the College World Series in five consecutive decades, though the Bulldogs have never won it all. They expect to compete at this level. But the fall season brought a host of annoyances that came with construction at Dudy Noble Field, which was in the early stages of a two-year, $55 million renovation.

The construction meant that they didn't have a field available to practice on every day. They did much of their fall work in the Palmeiro Center, an indoor facility for both the football and baseball programs. Some scrimmages were held at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson, Mississippi, some 125 miles away.

"It was rough," junior infielder Hunter Stovall said. "We had to scrimmage indoors. We didn't have an outfield [in the Palmeiro Center]. All we had was an infield. Bus into Jackson and scrimmaging there. It was almost a pain. It was like 'God Almighty, can we just chill and find a field around here?' It was a struggle. It was what it was. And we did what we had to with what we had."

Outfielder Elijah MacNamee offered his take.

"We were having intrasquad [scrimmages] and stuff at our indoor facility," MacNamee said. "Yeah, you can't do most things that you could on the field, but it didn't really stop us. We just did what we were told."

The inconveniences carried over into the spring. While crews continued to work on Dudy Noble, the Dawgs hit the road. They spent their first 12 games away from home and played a meager 23 home games all season. By comparison, their SEC counterparts in the College World Series -- Arkansas and Florida -- played 40 and 37 home games, respectively.

As if those weren't enough challenges, the coaching change happened after an 0-3 start to the season.

Cannizaro resigned after the Bulldogs were on the wrong end of a season-opening sweep by Southern Miss. In a statement that accompanied the news, he cited "poor decisions" that he made that led to his departure and asked Mississippi State fans to one day forgive him. Later, it became known that an extramarital affair with a university employee was at the crux of the forced resignation.

Out went Cannizaro, and in stepped Henderson -- the pitching coach who athletic director John Cohen has long known, worked with and trusted to try to right the ship.

Sudden change isn't easy, but it didn't impact everyone the same way.

"I mean, we kinda saw it coming," Stovall said. "But then again, [Cannizaro] had some good relationships with some of the people on the team, so it affected people differently. But it was unfortunate, I can tell you that. But Coach Henderson has come in and done an unbelievable job of filling that role -- and honestly, we couldn't have had anybody better do it."

Henderson's credentials -- he is a 30-year coaching veteran who has been a head coach in the SEC before, at Kentucky -- gave him credibility among the players. ("He knows the game of baseball and he knows how to play it the right way," pitcher Konnor Pilkington said.) Plus, he already had been in the program for a year. Assistant coaches Jake Gautreau and Mike Brown played key roles too as the players adapted to a fresh outlook. They tried to keep the team optimistic.

"I just think our coaches have done a really good job of just keeping us together, keeping us positive through it all," Foscue said. "I think [Henderson] is just a really positive coach. He knows what he's doing. Coach Gautreau has done a really good job with the hitters. Henderson's more with the pitchers. But I think it's just the positivity they've shown in the worst times has really helped us."

Stovall said that after a few weeks the players saw the investment Henderson had in the team's success and realized that, "OK, this dude is real. He's not just in the position and trying to get through the year; he wants to win."

"So when we figured that out," Stovall continued, "that's when we all came together."

Still, there was the small matter of winning games, something that was difficult early on. They were under .500 at midseason, and it wasn't until May 9 that they made it to five games over .500. When the Bulldogs entered their final regular-season series at Florida, there was a chance that they would miss the SEC tournament if they were swept by the Gators.

Instead, they did the sweeping. On the strength of that series, as well as their performance against a top-10 Ole Miss team earlier in the season, the Bulldogs had done enough to position themselves for a regional.

But even that wasn't easy. They lost the first game of the Tallahassee Regional and were one strike away from being eliminated, before MacNamee blasted a three-run walk-off homer for a 3-2 win over Florida State that saved the season. After three more wins and another MacNamee walk-off to open the Nashville Super Regional against Vanderbilt, the Bulldogs survived a frenzied Game 3 -- which went 11 innings and included a three-run ninth-inning comeback by the Commodores -- before eventually pulling out a 10-6 win to clinch their spot in Omaha.

Despite all their obstacles, the Bulldogs still ended up where they thought they would when the season began.

"I think you have to go to the character of the kids and the type of people they are, how they were raised, the support of their families," Henderson said. "I think you have to give a lot of credit to the coaching staff, especially the assistant coaches who deal with those guys so much on a day-to-day basis and, obviously, then you look at team leadership.

"All those things come together to create a cohesive unit that makes a decision to focus on the right things, the important things, talk about the things that are really, really relevant in terms of being successful and makes a decision to not get wrapped up in the nonsense."

While they've avoided the nonsense, that doesn't mean the Bulldogs haven't had fun. Yes, that fun involves a yellow piece of fruit.

If you follow State, you know the background by now. Nine-hole hitter Jordan Westburg started having fun with a banana in the Tallahassee Regional. First it was a phone. Then it was a radar gun. It has spent time on his head. Coincidentally, the Bulldogs started to play well after Westburg's shenanigans and soon it became a superstition.

Fans caught on and now bananas are all over the place, in both the Mississippi State dugout and in the crowd. Some fans have been spotted wearing banana costumes. A 10-year-old reporter from Sports Illustrated for Kids asked Henderson on Tuesday about it. After explaining its origins -- and the fact that Westburg had seven RBIs in Mississippi State's win over North Carolina -- Henderson enthusiastically said, "I think you need to believe in the banana."

The explosion of the banana underscores this team's demeanor: loose and fun, but not at the expense of focus. On the field, they've been almost impossible to beat this month. Off of it, they're cutting up in the clubhouse, having a blast. Pilkington called the season a "roller coaster." The fact that they've stuck together through it all has been the linchpin to their memorable run.

"Literally, every single one of us are best friends," Stovall said. "We give each other so much crap. When I say we're like brothers, we fight like brothers. It's crazy."

That's why they're here, a win away the program's second CWS final appearance in school history.

"We had some boys at the beginning of the year and now everyone on this team are men," MacNamee said. "This is something everyone's going to remember for the rest of their life. No matter what happens in this tournament, this team is something special."