OXFORD | Ole Miss wasn’t good enough on Sunday.
Damn close. One pitch. One out. Close, oh so close.
The Rebels fought back from a deficit. They set up some opportunities, and they got out to an early lead which is usually a deciding factor in series finales.
But, over the course of nine innings, Arkansas was the better team because it produced more opportunities and made fewer mistakes, and that led to the Razorbacks’ 12-9 victory. It gave the Hogs two out of three on the weekend and dropped Ole Miss to 15-4 overall and 1-2 in the SEC.
“Just not good enough,” Mike Bianco said. “This is what happens in the SEC. Nine weeks of this to come, and you have to play well or you lose. We didn’t play well enough. I don’t think they played great either. They walked eight, hit two, gave up four home runs and still won the baseball game.”
The No. 13 Rebels won the opener on Friday but dropped back-to-back games to the No. 3 Razorbacks who are now 18-2 overall on the year.
The Southeastern Conference has at least 14 and maybe 15 teams worthy of NCAA Tournament play relative to the rest of the nation. Arkansas is maybe the most consistent regular season program in the nation over the past decade or more, and the Rebels are trying to reclaim some relevance after two poor seasons.
There’s no harm overall in dropping a couple games to a team like Arkansas, even at home, but the way that it happened can’t be a harbinger for the other 27 league games this season.
Ole Miss had a one-run lead and two outs when Arkansas singled off Connor Spencer to tie it and then hit a three-run home run to ice it in the ninth inning. An error on Owen Paino, his second of the day, and a bloop started the frame.
Paino, the true freshman, has seven errors in 52 chances.
The Rebels trailed by three runs going into the stretch but put up three in the seventh and one in the eighth to take the lead. Judd Utermark led Ole Miss with three hits, and Will Furniss and Mitchell Sanford had two each. Furniss hit a home run.
Ole Miss stranded the bases loaded in the first and sixth innings and left two on in the seventh and ninth frames.
The Rebels led 4-0 after three innings thanks to Luke Hill and Utermark two-run home runs. Mason Nichols gave up just a run in 4.2 innings, but the bullpen was a mess until Spencer put up 1.2 innings of scoreless relief prior to the pivotal ninth inning that got away from Ole Miss.
Arkansas had 27 at-bats with a runner on base compared to just 12 for Ole Miss and 20 with runners in scoring position compared to Ole Miss going 2-for-7 in that category. The Razorbacks fouled off pitches, caught some luck with hard grounders and took advantage of inferior Ole Miss defensive plays.
“We didn’t get off the field with defense or on the mound,” Bianco said. “It’s down to a couple plays, and we didn’t make them.”
The Hogs’ Will McEntire gave up just one run in 3.1 innings of relief, which allowed Arkansas to get back in it and take the lead.
Through it all, Ole Miss found itself ahead but couldn’t close it out from the cusp. The effort and fight and resilience are indeed better. Cleaner play has to follow for it to matter.
“Stuff happens, and you have to wear it on the chin and it sucks,” Hill said. “We’re going to learn how to win these games. We have big expectations… We fought and were right there and it’s tough.”
