STARKVILLE — Mississippi State’s Dogs had no problem chasing down a pack of Ducks this weekend.

Brent Rooker hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning, Daniel Brown threw seven innings of shutout ball, and the Bulldogs finished a three-game sweep of ninth-ranked Oregon by winning 5-2 Sunday at Dudy Noble Field.

It was the first time Mississippi State (12-3-1) has swept a team ranked in the top 10 since May 2012 against Kentucky, and provided a good springboard into next week’s Southeastern Conference series against Vanderbilt.

“Oregon is a good club but they did not play well on this trip,” Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. “They have some outstanding starting pitching. In their ballpark, they will win a ton of games. It was an excellent set of wins for us.”

Brown continued Mississippi State’s trend of excellent starting pitching in the series. He allowed four hits and one walk while striking out four in seven innings.

In 18 2/3 innings in the series, Mississippi State’s starters allowed two runs and struck out 25 batters. MSU carried a shutout into the eighth inning in each of the last two games.

“Daniel was really throwing strikes,” Cohen said. “Even though he didn’t have a high number of strikeouts, he was really challenging hitters. He was around 90 pitches and he was begging us to go back out there but we really got what we needed out of him.”

The Bulldogs scored single runs in the first and fifth innings, and then blew it open with three in the sixth.

Ryan Gridley drew a leadoff walk and later scored on a base hit by Jacob Robson. Rooker then smashed a two-out, two-run home run to give the Bulldogs a 5-0 lead.

Oregon (8-5) got on the board with a pair of solo home runs by Travis Moniot and A.J. Balta in the eighth inning, but only had six hits in the game and hit into two double plays.

Robson went 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored for Mississippi State, while Rooker was 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored.

Robson has hit safely in 11 consecutive games.

Reid Humphreys drove in two runs and pitched a scoreless ninth inning for his second save of the season.

Oregon had allowed a total of 24 runs in its first 10 games, and matched that total in the three games of this series.

Oregon starter David Peterson allowed four runs, three earned, on six hits and four walks in 5 2/3 innings. Peterson (2-1) had walked four batters total in his first three starts.

“You look at their numbers and they’re scary. They’re probably striking out two guys an inning before they came here,” Cohen said of Oregon. “This is a really good team. They just did not have a great weekend.”