Mississippi State’s express route to the Southeastern Conference championship hit a speed bump Thursday.

Jerad Grundy and Alex Phillips combined on a four-hitter, and Kentucky avenged last weekend’s sweep in Starkville by beating Mississippi State 5-1 at the SEC Tournament.

The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for the Bulldogs (36-22) and sent them into an elimination game today at 3 p.m. against LSU (43-15).

LSU lost its tournament opener to Mississippi State on Wednesday, but bounced back to beat Ole Miss 11-2 in an elimination game Thursday.

“We’ve won five SEC baseball games in a row. There aren’t a lot of teams in our league that have done that this year. I’m really proud of the effort we’ve been getting,” Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. “Mentally, we were a little bit tired and not as locked in as I wanted us to be today. Our mission right now is to put that in the rear view mirror and move forward and get ready to play a very good LSU team tomorrow.”

Kentucky (43-15) advanced to the semifinals, where it’ll face either Mississippi State or LSU at noon Saturday. It can thank its pitching staff for the extra day of rest.

Grundy (5-3) struck out a career-high nine batters in six innings, allowed one run on four hits and walked two. Phillips pitched the last three innings and allowed one walk and no hits.

Three of Mississippi State’s hits came in the first inning, when it scored its only run. Adam Frazier and Hunter Renfroe singled, and Frazier scored on another single by Trey Porter.

Thomas McCarthy was the offensive star for Kentucky. He went 4-for-5 with three doubles, an RBI and three runs scored. A.J. Reed had two hits and two RBIs.

Reed drove in McCarthy twice, with a single in the fifth inning and a sacrifice fly in the ninth.

“(Kentucky) wanted desperately to win this baseball game, and they did a nice job with their execution and we didn’t,” Cohen said.