Mississippi
High-powered Virginia lineup on deck for Mississippi State Baseball
![High-powered Virginia lineup on deck for Mississippi State Baseball High-powered Virginia lineup on deck for Mississippi State Baseball](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3940,h_2216,x_123,y_0/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/296/01hza5jfqaea8atrk3ym.jpg)
Dakota Jordan’s slump-busting, walk-off, 3-run home run in the bottom of the 10th inning lifted Mississippi State baseball over St. John’s and into the winner’s bracket of the Charlottesville regional Friday night. Now, the Diamond Dawgs will take on regional host and #12 national seed Virginia, one of the best offensive teams in the country.
5:00 pm CT on ACC Network and ESPN+
Though the Cavaliers are most know for electric offense, it was their pitching that led the way in their 4-2 regional opening win over Penn. They held the Quakers to just two runs on four hits while striking out 11 and using just two pitchers. Second-baseman Henry Godbout hit a 3-run homer in the 2nd, and the Hoos would tack on an insurance run in the 7th.
MSU saw some high-powered lineups in SEC play this year, and Virginia is just as good as those if not better. Their team average of .339 is second nationally, and they’re third in runs per game at 9.6. Their entire starting lineup is batting at least .300. Eight players have at least 40 RBI, and four have at least 13 home runs.
Left-fielder Harrison Didawick leads the team with 23 homers and 67 RBI. Center-fielder Bobby Whalen is batting .395, and catcher Jacob Ference is slugging at .750. The Hoos can mash, and while Penn limited their offense on Friday, MSU’s Jurrangelo Cijntje will need an elite outing to keep them at bay.
UVA HC Brian O’Conner chose to hold his ace, Evan Blanco, against Penn, assuming they could get to the winner’s bracket without him. That decision paid off, and now they’ll start their best arm against MSU.
Blanco is 7-3 on the year with a 3.50 ERA with a 79/24 K/BB ratio. The lefty’s been the lone sure-starter for the Cavs this year, and he was fantastic in his last two outings. Nearly all of UVA’s bullpen will be available on Saturday, including Dean Kampschror (3.48 ERA) and Angelo Tonas (3.97 ERA).
Inconsistency at the plate was the biggest issue for Mississippi State in the regular season, and that’s held true in the postseason. It’s taken final inning heroics from Connor Hujsak and Dakota Jordan to drag State to wins in low-scoring affairs.
They can’t count on that against Virginia. While there’s all the reason to be confident in Jurrangelo Cijntje to give State a great outing, and UVA’s lineup was mostly quiet against Penn, the Cavs have been too good offensively this year to just assume they won’t find some success at the plate Saturday night.
MSU’s own lineup is going to need a good game if they want to move to 2-0 in Charlottesville. Hopefully, Dakota Jordan’s walk-off sparked something for this team going forward.
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Mississippi
Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record
![Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record Mississippi alligator breaks 2 state records and is possibly a world record](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/09/10/PJAM/75154627007-1000001789.jpg?auto=webp&crop=1078,606,x2,y184&format=pjpg&width=1200)
‘When she came up she was under the bottom of the boat in between the pontoons. She was slapping the boat with her tail and all that. I thought she was going to knock my motor off for a minute.’
Watch: Texas officer wrangles angry gator from family’s front porch
Body camera footage captured the moment a police officer swiftly removed a small alligator from a home in Texas.
After two frustrating nights on the last weekend of the season, a Mississippi hunter caught the alligator he’d been after, but what he didn’t realize when he pulled it in his boat was that not only did it break two state records, it’s possibly a world record.
Jason Ullendorf said a cousin of his was buying a part at a boat shop last week when he was told about an alligator in the Pascagoula River. The alligator had been spotted near a sandbar and had been making people visiting the location uncomfortable.
“We figured we’d help them out and get it out of there,” Ullendorf said. “We went down there to look at it, and it was a pretty good gator. It’s kind of crazy how it happened.”
Catching it was easier said than done, though. Ullendorf and members of his hunting party repeatedly hooked the alligator, only to have the hooks pull out or break off when the alligator would go under logs.
“We chased it from about 9 o’clock until about 3 o’clock in the morning,” Ullendorf said. “By then we’d lost all our hooks.”
More: Hunters bag Mississippi alligator weighing almost 700 pounds
Another long night of hunting alligators
The following day, Ullendorf bought more hooks and returned to the river with only one other hunter, Joseph Mangano of Richton. Fortunately, they found the alligator in the same spot as the night before. Unfortunately, it was shaping up to be a replay of the night before with the two repeatedly hooking the alligator, only to have the hooks pull free.
“It was frustrating,” Mangano said. “At one point, we got so frustrated we left it and an hour later started again. We knew we would hook it, but we were going to have to get it out of the trees.”
At 4:45 a.m., the hunters got a break. The alligator surfaced in open water near the sandbar. The two hooked the alligator with a rod and reel and then got a hand line on it as the alligator towed the two men and their 18-foot pontoon boat upriver. Everything was going relatively smoothly until they pulled the gator near the boat.
“When she came up she was under the bottom of the boat in between the pontoons,” Ullendorf said. “She was slapping the boat with her tail and all that. I thought she was going to knock my motor off for a minute.”
More: ‘The size and mass of his head is unreal.’ Mississippi alligator hunters bag 800-pound giant
Mississippi hunters suspect their alligator is a female
The two got the alligator in their boat and while Ullendorf referred to it as a “she,” he didn’t think it was a female at the time. This alligator was too big to be a female, and the longest female alligator ever recorded in the state was caught in 2022 by Jim Denson and measured 10 feet, 2 inches.
“As soon as she came up we said, ‘That’s a male,’” Ullendorf said. “We never second-guessed it.”
But then they did. When to two took the alligator to Mangano’s business in Richton, Running M Meat Company, they discovered the alligator didn’t have male sex organs.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” Ullendorf said. “We called Andrew Arnett to come down and verify it. I didn’t believe it at all.”
Is this Mississippi alligator a world record?
Arnett is the head of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Alligator Program. He confirmed it was a female and certified it at 11 feet, 3/4 inches long and 324 pounds. Not only was it a state record for longest female, it was the new state record for heaviest.
However, it may have broken another record, if only it existed. Multiple internet searches came up empty for an official world record for female alligators, but some states keep official records. According to searches by the hunters and Arnett, the longest female alligator on record before Ullendorf’s was 10 feet, 6.75 inches long and it was caught in Florida. If that’s true, Ullendorf has the new world record for longest female alligator.
“Just from what I’ve seen online, I think so,” Arnett said.
Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.
Mississippi
Mississippi Mass Choir new album
![Mississippi Mass Choir new album Mississippi Mass Choir new album](https://gray-wlbt-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/LN5AVK73IRECJB53MST6TFOPVM.jpg?auth=7293d246690750f402210a8085107a94402842e689fadd2a04c7637358c3eda3&width=1200&height=600&smart=true)
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – The Mississippi Mass Choir has a new album! We Still Believe is available!
The director and some choir members joined Studio 3 to discuss the songs.
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Mississippi
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