Ole Miss earns sweep opportunity with 5-4 win over Auburn
Ole Miss plays a meaningful baseball game on Sunday.
Considering how the majority of the season has gone, that's at least the first step in the Rebels' NCAA Tournament pursuit. The Rebels go for the sweep of Auburn at 3 p.m. on Sunday following the 5-4 win on Saturday night to clinch the series.
Ole Miss is 25-21 overall and 9-14 in the SEC with seven league games remaining. The goal is at least 13 regular season conference wins to give the Rebels a chance at the real postseason. No SEC team has ever made a regional with more than 17 regular season conference losses.
A home series with Texas A&M and a road trip to LSU await. The Tigers have taken the first two from the Aggies this weekend in Baton Rouge and are also 9-14 in the SEC. Ole Miss and LSU are two games clear of Missouri for the final spot in the SEC Tournament.
Ole Miss has optimism for NCAA inclusion with at least 13 SEC wins going to Hoover because of its No. 24 RPI and No. 3 strength of schedule. The Rebels have nine wins against the RPI top 25.
Texas A&M entered the weekend as the No. 1 team nationally and has the nation's top RPI. The Aggies are a problem for a few days from now. First up is to finish off an Auburn team that mostly refuses to win.
My co-worker, Neal McCready, say yesterday that Auburn didn't get to 3-20 in the SEC by accident, and that's why this finale matters. It's a highly winnable game and needing three more wins instead of four with two weekends left is a far different challenge, though LSU is far from a pushover despite the record.
The Rebels scored the winning run in the ninth on Saturday, working three walks before an Andrew Fischer sacrifice fly. Treyson Hughes, Campbell Smithwick and Ethan Groff all walked on full-count pitches, laying off close offspeed offerings for ball fours.
"It was a gutsy by our offense to hang in there," Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. "We chipped away and then big 3-2 walks. Groff and Smithwick laid off tough sliders. Just really good at-bats."
Fischer also had a two-run home run earlier in the game to tie it at 4; it was his 17th home run of the season and second in as many days.
Wes Mendes entered with a runner on first and no outs in the seventh and got the final nine outs of the game. The freshman thew 21 of 33 pitches for strikes for his first career win.
"We've been looking for that guy," Bianco said. "We weren't sure about the ninth, but he was throwing it so well we had to run him back out there."
Josh Mallitz didn't allow a run in 2.1 relief innings, coming in for starter Liam Doyle.
"Mallitz's last two innings were the Josh we saw in 2022," Bianco said. "It's there and in his tank."
Luke Hill had two hits, and Groff scored twice. Ole Miss was 3-for-14 with men on base but held Auburn to 3-for-17 in the same category. The Rebels are without Ethan Lege for at least one more game due to a fractured thumb.
Auburn scored two in the first, and Ole Miss answered with single runs in two straight innings.