Georgia wins, 3-2, hands Ole Miss fifth loss in last seven SEC games

OXFORD | The late-inning pitching problems that plagued Ole Miss in back-to-back series losses to Mississippi State and Vanderbilt traveled back to Oxford as the Rebels began an SEC homestand.

Ryan Rolison gave Ole Miss plenty of chances, giving up only one run through seven innings, but as the Rebel offense started to find some traction, Rolison remained one pitch too long to start the eighth, and the bullpen again couldn’t secure multiple clean innings.

Georgia scored one in the eighth and one in the ninth to spoil Ole Miss’ return home, taking the series opener, 3-2, in front of the 11th largest announced crowd (10,399) in Swayze Field history. The Rebels (30-9, 8-8) have lost five of their last seven league games and fall to .500 in the SEC for the first time since March 17. Ole Miss has also dropped three straight one-run games.

“We just didn’t play well enough,” head coach Mike Bianco said. “They story was they played better in all phases… It was a close game, but those end-game battles we were so good at that make all the difference in the world… we haven’t done enough of that.”

The Bulldogs had lost series to Vanderbilt and Kentucky the last weeks and are now 27-11 (10-6). The two teams will finish the series with a Saturday doubleheader beginning at 1:30 p.m.

With a tie game in the top of the eighth, Rolison started the inning and surrendered a leadoff double on a 2-1 count. It was his 104th and final pitch after he had thrown up six straight zeroes and gave the Ole Miss offense time to get anything on the board.

Will Ethridge got three straight outs, but the Bulldogs took the lead as the runner moved around on two of the outs in play. Ethridge has been dynamic in his first appearances of the weekends, allowing only one run in 10 innings. However, he’s given up seven runs in 4.2 innings during that timespan when it’s his second outing of a series.

That's a notable stat with 18 innings on tap Saturday.

That inning was all he’d throw, with Ole Miss going to Parker Caracci for the ninth after tying it in the bottom half. Two singles around a walk gave Georgia the decisive run and Ole Miss another close loss. Caracci has yielded four hits and two walks in his last 1.2 innings and has allowed multiple base runners in 10 of his last 11 outings.

The Rebels couldn’t solve Georgia starter Chase Adkins and didn’t have a hit between the second and sixth innings. That ended when Grae Kessinger hit his third home run of the season to start the sixth. That tied the game, and the Rebels did the same when Thomas Dillard had an eighth-inning single to score Ryan Olenek who extended his hitting streak to 17 games.

“It was a struggle,” Kessinger said. “He threw all his pitches for strikes and moved it in and out.”

Ole Miss scored just the one run in the eighth despite three straight hits with less than two outs. The Rebels also wasted a golden chance in the first inning with the bases loaded, but Cole Zabowski grounded into a double play.

Ole Miss leads the SEC with 35 double plays grounded into this season.

Nick Fortes was the only Rebel with multiple hits.

The two teams combined to go 3-for-18 with runners in scoring position.