AUBURN, Ala. — Mississippi State was in control, cruising along toward an easy victory and its second series win in a row on Sunday.

That all unraveled in a hurry.

Auburn wiped out a four-run deficit by scoring seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning — three of them on a go-ahead home run by Brendan Venter — and went on to beat Mississippi State 7-5 in the finale of a three-game series.

Auburn (25-12, 6-9 Southeastern Conference) won its first league series since taking two of three from Texas A&M March 16-18. It had lost 11 of its last 16 games overall before Sunday.

“The win today was huge. We’ve been grinding out at-bats, our pitchers have been throwing well, and things just haven’t really rolled our way. It feels good to come out in the win column today,” Venter said.

Mississippi State (19-18, 5-10) missed a chance to climb out of last place in the SEC Western Division. It had won four of five entering the weekend, but will now have to scramble in the second half of the SEC schedule to qualify for the conference tournament.

Only the top 12 teams in the 14-team league advance to the tournament. MSU’s last five SEC series include matchups with division leaders Arkansas and Florida.

“We were pleased with our starting pitching the entire series,” Mississippi State coach Gary Henderson said. “We got three good starts. We played well defensively the entire series. We didn’t manage the sixth inning well at all. There were too many freebies and then too many two-strike base hits. It was a bad inning.”

Jake Mangum hit an RBI double in the top of the fifth inning and Luke Alexander followed with a two-run home run to give the Bulldogs a 3-0 lead.

Justin Foscue and Marshall Gilbert hit back-to-back doubles in the sixth to stretch that to 4-0.

The bottom of the sixth, however, was a disaster for the Bulldogs.

After striking out the leadoff man, MSU pitcher Jacob Billingsley gave up a single to Will Holland, hit a batter, and then surrendered an RBI double to Brett Wright that brought in Auburn’s first run.

Billingsley was replaced on the mound by Cole Gordon, who also struggled. Gordon gave up a walk and threw a wild pitch that plated one run, and then went to a full count on Venter with runners still at second and third.

Venter crushed a breaking ball over the center field fence for a three-run homer that put Auburn ahead 5-4.

“I knew they were trying to throw breaking balls and get me to chase, especially with first base open,” Venter said. “I was just trying to battle with two strikes and get a swing on a pitch, and it happened.”

Auburn wasn’t done, though. Judd Ward hit an RBI triple and then scored on a ground out to pad the lead to 7-5.

Mississippi State didn’t score again until the ninth, when Rowdey Jordan hit an RBI single. That brought the tying run to the plate with one out, but Auburn pitcher Cody Greenhill retired the last two batters to finish the game.

Greenhill (2-1) pitched 4 1/3 innings out of the bullpen to get the win. He struck out five batters, walked none, and allowed two runs on five hits.

Mississippi State outhit Auburn 10-8, but couldn’t strike back after the Tigers’ big sixth inning.

“For the most part, we are an improved offensive team,” Henderson said. “We had good at-bats all weekend. We are taking too many fastballs early in the count. We need to be more aggressive early in counts. We outhit them in all three games. That is improvement.”