GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Nick Mingione might have a thick, juicy, expensive piece of red meat with all the fixin's headed his way.
Mississippi State's assistant became the ultimate voice of reason in the bottom of the ninth with the Bulldogs trailing 3-2 to No. 2 national seed Florida on Saturday.
Mingione was the one who talked Mississippi State coach John Cohen out of having Nick Vickerson bunt with a runner on and lefty Steven Rodriguez on the mound.
When the Gators took reliever Nick Maronde out, Mingione approached Vickerson and Cohen with the idea of letting the senior find a strike and swing.
Vickerson, who was 0-for-2 against Rodriguez this season with two strikeouts, locked in on a first-pitch fastball and launched the ball over the left-field wall to give the Bulldogs the 4-3 walk-off win, forcing a third game in the Gainesville Super Regional.
Would you like dessert with that succulent slab of beef Mr. Mingione? You got it.
"We felt like if we were in it at the end, maybe someone would step up and make a big play," said Vickerson, who was 2-for-4 on the day.
Now, the pressure is all on the Gators. And it should feel like mounds of it after watching that game get ripped from their hands like that. The Bulldogs wouldn't admit it, but they have the momentum and they have the edge.
However, if there is one coach with the skill to wipe his players' minds clean of Saturday's heartbreaker, it's Florida's Kevin O'Sullivan. He's the master of preparation, and he vowed to have his team fresh and ready for Sunday's elimination game.
He said his players -- and coaches -- will be "business as usual." There won't be speeches or overdone team huddles. O'Sullivan said everyone will head into Sunday with the mindset of playing just another baseball game -- even if it is the biggest to take place in McKethan Stadium in O'Sullivan's tenure.
"If we want to get to where we want to get to and we want to win a national championship, it's not going to be easy," he said. "We're going to have to go through this and we're going to have to recover from it and we're going to have to give it our best shot tomorrow. We will not let this leak into tomorrow."
O'Sullivan said he wasn't upset with his team's performance and praised the Bulldogs for playing better. But the Gators weren't without their opportunities. They outhit the Bulldogs 11-7 and left nine runners on base.
Bryson Smith, Mike Zunino and Josh Adams combined to hit 7-for-14 at the plate, and freshman starter Karsten Whitson was terrific in his 6 1/3 innings, striking out six and giving up just four hits.
But the Bulldogs found confidence from closer Caleb Reed, who came in for starter Nick Routt in the fourth. In his 5 1/3 innings of work, Reed allowed four hits and one run while frustrating Florida with his new and improved changeup.
That one run came in the eighth after the Bulldogs tied the score at two in a four-hit bottom of the seventh. Florida's Tyler Thompson strolled into third and drove Zunino in from second when his line drive inched over the glove of a diving C.T. Bradford, who was poorly out of position.
It should have cost the Bulldogs the game. It should have been the clutch/head-scratching play that sealed Florida's first back-to-back trip to the College World Series in school history.
But the Bulldogs stayed calm and, as the pressure built for the Gators, Mississippi State took advantage with just two swings.
"Florida's not going to give you anything; you have to beat Florida," Cohen said. "That's what we had to do today. There were several situations where they could have caved and given us something, but they made great plays defensively.
"They didn't give us anything. We had to go out and get it, and our kids did."
