The postseason trajectories for both Mississippi State and Ole Miss might have changed over the course of a rainy weekend in Starkville.

Mississippi State beat Ole Miss twice in their weekend series at Dudy Noble Field. It gave the Bulldogs their second straight Southeastern Conference series victory and a needed boost heading toward the conference — and hopefully NCAA — tournament.

“It feels like we’re trending. It feels like we’re figuring out, learning and improving on how to win games collectively,” MSU interim head coach Justin Parker said. “We’ve been playing better complementary baseball so I think that’s the biggest thing is trending, yes, but we’re not as one-dimensional as maybe we were six weeks ago or a month ago and we’re able to win games in a couple different ways.”

Mississippi State has endured a difficult season, to say the least. It was muddling along with a 25-19 record when head coach Chris Lemonis was fired following a series loss at Auburn on April 27.

Parker, the pitching coach, was promoted to the interim head coach position after Lemonis’ dismissal, and the Bulldogs have gotten hot since then. They’ve won six of seven games and both SEC series against Kentucky and Ole Miss since then.

Ole Miss (34-17, 14-13 SEC) won the first game on Friday, 10-4, and then Mississippi State (31-20, 12-15) took the next two. Evan Siary had 15 strikeouts in eight innings in a 4-1 victory in game two, which was played as the second half of a doubleheader Friday because of rain forecast for the weekend.

The finale was originally scheduled for Sunday, then moved to Saturday night because of more expected rain. Ace Reese and Gatlin Sanders drove in two runs each, and the Bulldogs hung on to win 6-5.

Mississippi State led 6-1 through five innings, then Ole Miss scored twice in the seventh and twice more in the eighth to pull within one run. Colin Reuter hit a two-run home run in the eighth inning.

The Rebels put two runners on in the ninth before Isaac Humphrey hit into a double play and Hayden Federico grounded out to end it.

Mississippi State has won eight of its last nine series against Ole Miss since 2016.

“It’s big for us because we need those wins and I think tonight it just meant a little bit more to us than it did to them, and that was huge for us,” Sanders said. “I think we’re getting hot right now and hopefully we could carry that on into the postseason.”

While it was a thrilling finish to the rivalry series in the moment, Mississippi State’s win might have bigger implications for its season.

As many as 14 SEC teams are projected to make the NCAA Tournament, and Mississippi State is currently in 13th place. It will need to win, if not sweep, its final conference series — at last-place Missouri (16-35, 3-24) — and perhaps at least one game in the SEC tournament.

MSU also hosts North Alabama on Tuesday in a midweek game this is suddenly as must-win as it gets.

It’s still alive and kicking, though, and has momentum that it certainly did not have a few weeks ago.

“Of course this series meant a lot to the Mississippi kids, but it meant meant a lot for our ball club,” Parker said. “I mean really. when you think about growing as a group and trying to peak at the right time and improving, and figuring out who we are, and you can just see confidence growing in this group.”

As for Ole Miss, it seems securely in the NCAA Tournament but has likely lost its chance to host a regional with a late-season slump. The series loss to Mississippi State was its fourth in five SEC weekends. Three of those have been to teams in the bottom half of the standings.

The Rebels host Tennessee-Martin on Tuesday, then finish the regular season at home against Auburn (36-15, 16-11). That series begins Thursday night.

The Rebels will enter the weekend in ninth place in the SEC, a game behind Alabama and Tennessee and one ahead of Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Ole Miss is No. 17 in the NCAA’s RPI rankings that are a key component in selecting regional hosts and seeding teams in the NCAA Tournament. Mississippi State is No. 32 and Southern Miss is No. 30.

Auburn is No. 3, so Ole Miss does have a chance to impress the NCAA selection committee with a series win this weekend and a solid run next week in the SEC tournament.

“Just disappointing,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said after Saturday’s loss. “We didn’t play well enough. They outplayed us again. Disappointing way to end the weekend.”