Mississippi State finished in the second tier of teams in the Southeastern Conference, but it made an emphatic statement that it’ll be a contender before everything is said and done.

Adam Frazier and Trey Porter each had two hits and two RBIs, Demarcus Henderson went 2-for-3 with three RBIs, and the Bulldogs completed a three-game sweep of Kentucky with an 11-3 victory Saturday at Dudy Noble Field.

Mississippi State (34-21, 16-14 SEC) won for the fourth time in five SEC series and will enter the league tournament as the No. 7 seed. MSU will play its first tournament game Tuesday, against Arkansas in Hoover, Ala.

“I think it’s like last year when we got hot at the right time. Hopefully we can take it a little farther this year,” Henderson said.

Kentucky (41-15, 18-12), which started the day with a chance to win the first outright SEC title in school history, slipped to No. 4. It will open the tournament Tuesday against Ole Miss.

Kentucky’s loss, as well as Auburn’s upset of Florida, helped LSU claim the SEC title. LSU beat South Carolina, the other team in the four-way mix atop the standings, 3-2 in 10 innings.

State surged ahead Saturday with three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning and five in the fifth.

Trailing 2-0, the Bulldogs used two hit batsmen and a single by Hunter Renfroe to load the bases in the fourth. Mitch Slauter brought in a run with a fielder’s choice, then Henderson drove in another with a bunt single and Wes Rea singled through the left side to give MSU a 3-2 lead.

In the fifth, MSU used a pair of Kentucky errors and four hits — including a two-run single by Henderson — to score five runs.

Frazier had a two-run single in the seventh as State tacked on three more runs to stretch the lead to 11-2.

“We made an adjustment after that first time through the order. We started hitting some balls hard and laid off that slider of his and things fell for us,” said Slauter, who was 0-for-4 but drove in two runs and scored twice. “We’ve been making adjustments in the middle of the week and changing our approaches, and things are about to turn around for us.”

Jacob Lindgren earned the win for Mississippi State with 51⁄3 innings of solid relief work. He scattered three hits, allowed one run and struck out seven batters.

Lindgren, starter Evan Mitchell and closer Caleb Reed combined to strike out 12 batters in the game.

“My two-seamer was really working down to the right-handed hitters and my four-seamer was working in on them,” Lindgren said.