Its season coming to an end, Mississippi State at least seemed poised to finish it with a victory and play the role of satisfied spoiler.

Of course, there really wasn’t any way for this season to end than another gut-wrenching loss, was there?

Tennessee scored three times in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Bulldogs 3-2 on Saturday. The winning run came across on a walk-off single by Chris Hall, putting a fitting capstone on a season that seemed memorable for all the wrong reasons for the Dogs.

Mississippi State, which started the season on a 13-game winning streak, lost 18 of its last 21 games to finish with a 24-30 record (8-22 in the Southeastern Conference).

It missed the SEC Tournament for the first time in five years.

“It’s like our kids almost expect something bad to happen. This club was not the club we wanted it to be,” Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. “As coaches now, we work on next year and start putting together the type of club we want to be. We need to bring some great competitors into our program. That is the hardest thing to figure out during the recruiting process.”

Tennesssee (24-25, 11-18), meanwhile, won six of its last seven games to steal the 12th and final spot in the SEC Tournament. Its ninth-inning comeback, coupled with Georgia’s 8-1 loss to Arkansas on Saturday, let Tennessee sneak in.

The Volunteers earned their first-ever sweep of Mississippi State, and won three games in a row against MSU for the first time since doing it over the course of two series in 1969 and 1970.

“I’d like to quote something Al Michaels said, ‘Do you believe in miracles?’ Because that’s what this weekend was about,” Tennessee coach Dave Serrano said. “We knew our backs were against the wall, we knew we had to sweep a team that was in the race to get in the tournament, too. We hadn’t swept anyone all year, and we did it.”

Mississippi State starter Austin Sexton threw 6 1/3 shutout innings, but left with the game scoreless in the seventh.

The Bulldogs broke the deadlock in the eighth with Wes Rea’s solo home run, and made it 2-0 on Cody Brown’s RBI double.

Brown finished the game 3-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI. Matthew Britton also had three hits.

One of the Bulldogs’ biggest problems all season has been a shaky bullpen, however, and it reared its head one last time.

In the bottom of the ninth, reliever Zac Houston issued a leadoff walk and was replaced by Ross Mitchell, who hit a batter and gave up a bunt single to A.J. Simcox.

Simcox bunted the ball down the first base line and took a step back when Rea went to apply the tag. Rea never tagged Simcox, who alertly ran to first when Rea stepped away from the play after Simcox was initially called out.

“The second base ump had the best angle. He never did tag A.J. They got the call right, and that’s what a good crew does and good umpires do. ,” Serrano said.

Mitchell gave way to Trevor Fitts, who completed the collapse. Fitts gave up a two-run single to Andrew Lee to tie it and walked Jordan Rodgers to load the bases.

The next batter, Hall, delivered his walk-off RBI single up the middle.

Mississippi State’s bullpen faced six batters in the ninth inning and didn’t get any of them out.

“It’s disappointing because (Sexton) threw really well,” Cohen said.

Tennessee, meanwhile, was elated. The ninth-inning comeback put them in the SEC Tournament for the second straight season. It’s the first time that’s happened since 2004 and 2005. The Vols had missed the tournament from 2008-13.

“Obviously, I’m excited about the hit, but we are just so excited as a team to come together through this season and ride the ups and downs we’ve had and finally get to the goal we had and worked so hard for,” Hall said. “It’s almost unbelievable how far we’ve come from the start of the season to right now and getting to go to Hoover. We’re just ecstatic.”