BATON ROUGE ­— A series win was all Mississippi State could bring back from Baton Rouge.

Kramer Robertson and Bryce Jordan both homered, and LSU scored all of its runs in the middle innings in beating Mississippi State 11-8 Sunday at Alex Box Stadium.

Mississippi State (27-13-1, 10-8 Southeastern Conference) won the first two games of the series, but couldn’t take the finale. It’s the fourth time in six SEC series that it’s followed that pattern.

The Bulldogs won their first series against LSU since 2006.

“We didn’t make enough plays defensively to win the game,” Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. “We were great in the field Friday and Saturday. In this game, we just had a couple of plays that we didn’t make.”

Brent Rooker and Nathaniel Lowe each had an RBI double in the third inning as Mississippi State jumped out to a 3-0 lead.

LSU, however, scored four runs in the fourth inning, four more in the fifth, and three in the sixth to take a commanding 11-5 lead.

Robertson had an RBI double and Jordan a two-run home run in the fifth inning. Robertson hit a solo homer in the sixth.

“I’m so proud of our guys for continuing to battle in this game after we faced the early deficit,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “They could have easily thrown in the towel when we were down 3-0 in the fourth inning, but they didn’t, they remained focused and energized, as I knew they would. These are high-character kids, and they earned a significant victory today.”

Reid Humphreys had a two-run single in the eighth as Mississippi State cut its deficit to 11-8. The Bulldogs left the bases loaded, however, and then went down in order in the ninth.

“I thought we had some great offensive at-bats the entire weekend,” Cohen said. “We had great at-bats in this game as well. We certainly gave ourselves a chance. A couple of different innings we were a base hit away from being tied.”

 

Ole Miss 6, Auburn 5

Ole Miss (31-10, 10-8 SEC) scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth to earn a comeback victory over Auburn (18-22, 5-13).

The Rebels rallied from 5-0 down in the eighth inning scoring six times in the last two innings.

Freshman Ryan Olenek belted a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth before Henri Lartigue delivered the game-winning hit for the walkoff victory.

It was only fitting that Lartigue drove in the winning run. The junior catcher was the Rebels’ leading hitter all afternoon, going 4-for-5 to tie his career high in hits. Colby Bortles started the comeback with a two-run homer in the eighth, his fifth home run of the season.

Bortles also played a part in the final run of the game. After Tate Blackman reached on an error, Bortles’ single moved him to second base to set up Lartigue’s game-winning single to left field.