Jarrod Parks and Nick Vickerson formed a perfect tag team that left Tennessee down for the count on Friday night.

Vickerson went 3-for-6 with two doubles and five RBIs, while Parks went 3-for-4 with two RBIs as Mississippi State hammered Tennessee 16-5 in the opener of a weekend series in Knoxville.

Both players had big hits to help the Bulldogs (27-18, 9-13 Souhteastern Conference) blow the game open. Vickerson cleared the bases with a double in the fifth inning to put them ahead 8-2, while Parks’ two-run single capped a six-run seventh inning that made it 14-5.

“We were trying to be aggressive early in the count,” said Vickerson, who added a double in the ninth to drive in the Bulldogs’ last two runs. “Our team as a whole had a good plan at the plate. We did a good job of executing it.”

In all, Mississippi State had 15 hits and its highest run total in 72 games against Tennessee (22-21, 5-17). Brent Brownlee also had two hits, along with two RBIs, and C.T. Bradford drove in two runs.

“We took great swings tonight,” Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. “That is the third game in a row where we have swung the bats like that. It’s a good start to the weekend for us.”

Khayyan Norfork went 4-for-5 with two doubles and two RBIs for Tennessee, and Josh Liles was 4-for-4. The Vols matched MSU with 15 hits, but left 14 runners on base. Two of those came in the sixth inning, after Norfork’s RBI double cut it to 8-5. Two more runners were stranded in the ninth.

Luis Pollorena allowed five runs on 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings, but did enough to get the victory. Caleb Reed threw 1 2/3 innings in relief and Devin Jones pitched the last two innings. Neither reliever allowed a run, and they combined to allow four hits and no walks.