STARKVILLE, Miss. — Mississippi State baseball has a lot riding on their final regular season series with Missouri. Earlier this season, the thought of this team playing for a hosting spot on the final weekend was far-fetched. 

However, this team’s resiliency has prevailed all year long, and they have an opportunity to bring postseason baseball back to Dudy Noble Field for the first time since 2021. While State controls its destiny regarding hosting, its non-conference slip-ups have made the road more challenging. 

MSU sits at 15-12 in the conference; typically, a 17-13 record is enough to feel confident about being a host site. Still, it would be cutting it close if that is their record going into Memorial Day. 

Luckily for the Bulldogs, Missouri is one of the worst teams in the conference with an 8-19 conference record, and they are coming off a series loss to the only team below them in the standings, Auburn. MSU swept Auburn at Dudy Noble Field less than a month ago, but the story is reminiscent for Bulldog fans. 

In 2021, before winning a national title, State was in the thick of the SEC regular season title race as it welcomed Missouri to Starkville for its final home conference series. Much like this year, the Tigers were at the bottom of the SEC, but that did not matter as they took the series from the eventual national champions. 

Missouri is still playing for a spot in the SEC tournament, and a sweep over the Bulldogs would help them get to Hoover. Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis understands his team must focus on the task at hand. 

“They are still playing for a lot… I have been that team,” Lemonis said. “It is about us.” 

State seems to be piecing together its roster as guys such as Joe Powell and Logan Kohler are finding more consistency. Both guys struggled early in the season but have found their stride, especially Powell, who hit three home runs in the Bulldogs’ 8-4 win over North Alabama. 

Although the series loss to Arkansas in Fayetteville was frustrating, it may have shown the rest of the country how good this State team is. 

“The series at Arkansas did not go the way we wanted, but we showed that we are one of the top teams in the country,” Powell said. 

The win over North Alabama also saw the return of former MSU ace Nate Dohm. The Indiana native tossed two perfect innings and showed great control with his 92-94 MPH fastball. 

Dohm’s role on this team is still up in the air, but having him back in any capacity can only be positive for State. This team has all of its goals in front of it, and they seem to be hitting their stride at the perfect time. However, if they want to ensure that the Road to Omaha starts in Starkville, they must take care of business against Missouri. 

“I have told them all week, I don’t care about scenarios or tournaments; all we can control is what is between the white lines,” Lemonis said. “Our job is to prove to the committe that we are one of the top 16 teams in the country.” 

Several Missouri Republican lawmakers made it a priority this legislative session to pass restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland, but time is running out. When the clock strikes 6 p.m. this Friday, the state Legislature’s session ends.

Like many bills, the foreign farmland restrictions may go down in flames in the Senate, where work has been slow this final week and this session. Democrats are blocking a vote on a proposal to toughen citizen-led ballot initiatives.

One version of proposed foreign farmland ownership restrictions was included in a military-friendly package. The legislature recently passed Senate Bill 912, but Rep. Dave Griffith, who chairs the House Veterans Committee, removed the provision about foreign farmland restrictions.

“I can take responsibility for that because I said, ‘If that’s in there, I’m not going to hear it in my committee.’ But in conversations that I’ve had, I was told that if I changed the bill, it would kill the bill. But if I withdrew it completely off of there, it would leave it alone. I think it comes a point in time when you got to take somebody’s word for something and I took the word,” Griffith told Missourinet. “So we did, and sure enough, it was left alone.”

Leaving the provision in there could have presented a court challenge over Missouri’s bill restrictions on single subjects.

“I think that it just didn’t make sense to have that in there. I think cooler heads prevailed at the end of the day. There’s a place for that bill but it wasn’t in a veterans bill,” said Griffith, R-Jefferson City.

Current Missouri law allows up to 1% of farmland in the state to be owned by a foreign party.

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