CLINTON, Miss. – After allowing two first inning runs, Cody Mitchell slipped into cruise control and gave up just one additional run over eight full innings of work to help the Valdosta State baseball team open up their three-game Gulf South Conference set against Mississippi College with a 6-3 victory in Clinton, Miss. on Saturday.
 
With the victory, Valdosta State improved to 20-11 overall and 11-6 in GSC play, while the Choctaws fell to 12-17 on the year and 5-13 against league opponents.
 
The two initial runs for MC gave the Choctaws a lead that held until the fourth, when the Blazer bats broke through to tie the game up at 2-2. Tyler York led off the frame with a single through the right side, and Jaykob Graham struck for a two-bagger to center field. With runners at second and third, Ryan Smith put the Blazers on the board with an RBI grounder to shortstop, and Clint Carr tied the contest with a single through the left side.
 
The deciding point for the Blazers came in the sixth, when York delivered another leadoff hit to spark another big inning for Valdosta State, in which the red and black sent eight batters to the plate and scored four runs on four hits with the help of a Choctaw error. Two of the four runs in the inning came from a two-run single by Carr, who upped his total number of RBI's on the week to eight in just two games played thus far.
 
Cody improved to 5-2 on the year with the win, striking out eight batters and walking just one while allowing seven hits in the contest. The senior split the Choctaws evenly with seven flyouts and seven groundouts and gave way to Dustin Hersey after eight, who came on to retire MC in order in the ninth with two strikeouts for his fifth save of the year.
 
Valdosta State will pick the series back up on Sunday afternoon with a doubleheader finale, set to begin at 2:00 p.m. EST in Clinton, Miss. Look for live coverage of the games right here at www.vstateblazers.com.