Parham: Final-day failure masks a season of special moments

OXFORD | The celebration came from the other dugout. The dives and shouts and exclamations that were expected from the left side instead started in from the right, and Tennessee Tech takes its big offense to Texas with the chip still on the shoulder and a small-school story that will grab some headlines.

There are great chapters to the Golden Eagles’ 52 wins, the national lead, and an ace who guaranteed victory came through three times in five games to help achieve it. Words, columns and the question of whether Travis Moths should have been used to that extent will find plenty of digital ink.

But this weekend is about that other dugout. That team that came into Monday 2-0 and needed one win to help cement the legacy of a season and some careers, as well. Ole Miss, the Southeastern Conference Tournament and Western Division champions, tied the school record for wins at the fastest clip in school history and seemed destined for a retribution series against the Longhorns 13 years in the waiting and potentially a trip to Nebraska for the second time in five seasons.

This was supposed to be the season. The No. 1 recruiting class as sophomores, fully intact before Ryan Rolison departs for his professional career with the Rockies and the starting rotation has to be turned over. The 30-4 record at Swayze Field entering the day, and the national seed that guaranteed it wouldn’t have to leave Swayze until the College World Series.

Instead, it left it on this day for good, the lights out here and on in Austin with Tennessee Tech starting in a few days. The Rebels took a two-run lead in the sixth but fizzled the rest of the way, as Tech moved on to the super regional, crushing the advanced plans with a 3-2 win.

“Disappointed for this team that it ends this way,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “I told them it’s the best team I’ve ever coached. Yeah we’ve had teams that have gone further in postseason but no one has played as well as this team has for consistently well. Unfortunately we didn’t play great today and we needed to.”

Ole Miss (48-17) got out-played on offense and on the mound during the doubleheader losses, and the offense suffered the final silence, wasting a two-run, six-inning dazzler from freshman Jordan Fowler.

Fowler’s outing is a positive for the future, but that’s irrelevant in the pain of right now -- in the wake of self-inflicted damage and unfulfilled expectations. Instead of a coronation day to the next phase of the NCAA Tournament, Ole Miss suffered its worst home loss in three seasons, with a 15-5 defeat to Tennessee Tech Tech and then sputtered to the season-ending setback.

On the whole, the Rebels scored in just two of 18 innings against a mid major exhausted pitching staff that threw very few SEC-similar offerings at Ole Miss. The Rebels had only four at-bats with runners in scoring position in the finisher — against a team without pitching depth playing its fifth game in three days.

This Ole Miss team accomplished many positives, but those triumphs and superlatives only seem to increase the size of the asterisk. Fair or not, that’s the way legacies and memories work. The monster months of February to May murdered in a nine-hour period by a game-but-grossly-less-supported program.

Instead of making the final 16 and putting the program back on the national map in the postseason, hyperbole and stubborn stances on both sides will debate all the numerous accomplishments against the 2-6 postseason record since 2015 and the just one super regional appearance since 2010. It’s the second time in three years Ole Miss couldn’t defend a home regional, leaving 2014 as an outlier following considerable successful regular seasons that create a difficult valuation of the program.

This team had been tough all season, going 13-2 following losses, but that will be a mere footnote when the final verdict is the lack of noteworthy baseball into June.

It’s the cruel reality that throws cover over 40-win seasons and regular seasons with many momentum moments.The 2004 and 2016 seasons routinely are spoken of in hushed tones, pushing a certain level of pain into the audible because of expectations extinguished.

These 65 games have shown a lot of good guys working toward a common goal and finishing victories much more often than not. There are stories — told and untold — about how the team and program did many things typical of elite status. But in the cruel press conference following the final finish, when red, teary eyes and a lack of words because of the suddenness caused a tough scene for all involved, there’s the grappling of what to make of it all.

Expectations are either met or grow into a monster that gobbles up the along-the-way and leaves the remnants that show things as success or failure. That’s the bitter pill at season’s end when it comes to the thesis statements for seasons.

The great moments made for a darker final one, and failure is the term that documents the deciding day. Bianco said this was the best team he’s ever coached. It’s worth taking his word for it. And that reality is why, because of the all the good, the season will join others in wistful wonderment about what might have been.