OXFORD — For Ole Miss, the assignment isn’t complicated.
It’s not simple, mind you, but it’s not difficult to figure out.
Win three games in two days against two different teams and the Rebels advance. Lose just one of those three games and the season is over.
That’s the bad news for Ole Miss. The good news is the Rebels’ long-ball-oriented offense delivered on Saturday versus Western Kentucky, blasting Ole Miss to an 8-6 win and keeping the season alive in the Oxford Regional at Swayze Field.
Ole Miss will face the loser of this afternoon’s winners bracket game between Georgia Tech and Murray State Sunday at 2 p.m. Should the Rebels win, they’ll face the winner of the aforementioned winners’ bracket game later Sunday.
An Ole Miss sweep of a Sunday doubleheader would lead to a Monday winenr-take-all regional finale.
Ole Miss (41-20) made all of that at least possible Saturday with a power barrage and a gutsy effort by staff ace Hunter Elliott.
The Rebels hit six home runs — all solo shots — to simply overpower Western Kentucky (46-14). Mitchell Sanford led off the game with a home run and then added another, his 17th of the season, in the sixth inning.
Austin Fawley homered in the second inning, giving Ole Miss a school-record single-season mark of 109 home runs. The Rebels’ catcher homered again in the fourth inning. It was his 19th of the season.
Judd Utermark, who hit a 453-home run on Friday night in the Rebels’ loss to Murray State, repeated the feat on Saturday, crushing a fastball over the batter’s eye in center field. In the seventh, Utermark went opposite field for his 19th home run of the season.
"We've scored in a lot of ways this year," Sanford said. "A lot of it has come from the long ball, but that's just our offense is built. I thought we did a really good job, not just with our plan but (also) with the attack against the pitchers today."
Dating back to at least 1997, it was the first time three Ole Miss teammates combined to hit at least two home runs apiece.
"We really swung it well on a day when I thought the ball was really getting out, especially to the right side of the field," Bianco said. "But part of that was a really good approach by our guys."
"We were relentless," Elliott said. "Nothing went our way early and we just really didn't care. We know today was an elimination game and we weren't letting it eliminate us. We really like this group of guys and we want to play another day together and we earned that."
Meanwhile, Elliott bounced back from some errors
Meanwhile, Elliott, one of the stars of Ole Miss’ 2022 national title run, overcame a sluggish defensive start and basically slammed the door on the Hilltoppers.
Western Kentucky scored a pair of unearned runs in the first inning and an earned run in the second.
Elliott worked through traffic in the third and again in the fifth, but he got critical outs when he needed them. In the sixth, Elliott struck out Austin Haller for the first out of the frame. It was his 100th strikeout of the season, marking the fourth time in Ole Miss history — joining Drew Pomeranz, Lance Lynn and Mark Holliman — that a Rebel pitcher recorded 100 strikeouts in two separate seasons.
"I don't know that we have a guy who can get through what Elliott got through today," Bianco said. "The first inning with all the pressure, we give them two runs in the first. He was just lights out. He hung in there like aces do and never wavered."
Elliott said Saturday was "special," noting that he grew up in Tupelo going to postseason games at Swayze.
"Getting to experience it was special," Elliott said.
An out and two walks later, the Hilltoppers had the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate. Elliott rose to the occasion again, striking out Kyle Hvidsten with his 115th and final pitch of the afternoon. Emotions flowed from the left-hander as he stormed off the mound, possibly for the final time in his storied Ole Miss career.
"There's not too much you can think about other than trying to get ahead of guys, trying to get to two strikes as fast as possible and trying to put them away," Elliott said. "I knew the defense had my back and that's really all I was thinking about. The last strikeout was really special. It meant a lot to me and I kind of let the emotions flow."
"There's no better feeling than going into a game knowing he's on the bump," Sanford said. "It's almost like no matter what happens throughout the game, you know you're in the game and you know you have a chance. Putting up some runs for him today was big. We just like having him on our team."
Elliott (10-3) scattered eight hits and three walks while striking out seven. Taylor Rabe relieved Elliott, giving up a run and three hits while striking out one in two innings. Connor Spencer closed it out in the ninth, but not before giving up two runs (one earned) and seeing the Hilltoppers bring the potential game-winning run to the plate. Spencer induced a fly out to center field from Reid Howard to end it.
Dawson Hall (7-2) relieved starter Jack Bennett and took the loss for Western Kentucky. Bennett didn’t get out of the second inning, while Hall allowed three hits and two runs (one earned) in three innings of work.
