The Mississippi State Bulldogs are the 2021 college baseball national champions. A team full of veteran grinders made their third trip to Omaha and finally came out on top. Starkville, Mississippi officially has their very first national championship, and it was earned on the diamond. We look back at our favorite quotes from Diamond Dawgs including CWS Finals Most Outstanding Player, Will Bednar, and head coach, Chris Lemonis.
“We just take it one pitch at a time. We knew what was at stake. We knew going into this game we had an opportunity to do something that had never been done. We just came together and played with each other and left it all on the field.”
—OF, Tanner Allen
You can look at a situation in one of two ways: a chance to lose or a chance to win. All the Mississippi State Bulldogs saw game three as an opportunity. The entire season comes down to nine innings of baseball. Your mind has to be on that moment and nothing else.
[When asked about his slow start earlier in the week.] “Just keep going. Just keep going. You know, you’re having good at bats. Some things just don’t go your way—you miss a double by a foot and a half—you just keep going. Keep the confidence high and that’s what I did… that’s just the mindset.”
—OF, Rowdey Jordan
“Keep going” has been our motto lately. True victories are never handed over. They are earned with persistence and grit. Winners never give up. Winners push when everyone else wants to give up. Push as hard and long as possible, and when you are tired and beat up, keep pushing.
[When asked probably the worst question of the evening, “Did you give [the relievers a hard time] for not finishing off the no hitter?”] “No, not really. I mean I am sure I’ll bust his chops tomorrow, but no. We just won the National Championship—I don’t really care all that much. I really couldn’t care less about that right now, I’m on cloud 9.”
—RHP, Will Bednar
The easiest way to spot a bad teammate is how they act in the locker room after the game. Everyone handles the wins and the losses differently. I have never been in the locker room after a national championship, but I assume not one sole in there cared at all about the no-hitter. In fact, the man that asked the question literally might be the only person in the country that cared about that. Championships are won by teams. That’s what matters.
“Coming here three years in a row has been huge—you know—for an experience factor. This team had grit, and it had fight, and that’s something that I had never seen before… and a team like this just to never give in…”
—Head Coach, Chris Lemonis
There are a lot of good teams in college baseball. There is very little that separates the top fifty teams. So when it comes to a tournament like the 64-team college world series, grit and fight are must-haves. In order to achieve something like a national championship, a team has to believe they belong and never give up.
