Rebels go winless in Baton Rouge to complete regular season
BATON ROUGE | The last competitive half inning of the regular season featured a missed opportunity, a baseball blunder that took away a chance to make it a game.
In a way, it was fitting.
Ethan Groff tripled to start the fourth inning, and after a Campbell Smithwick walk, Reagan Burford chopped a ball back to the pitcher. Groff broke on contact, as he’s taught to do, and LSU easily threw him out at the plate.
The inning ended two batters later, and LSU turned a two-run lead into an eight-run landslide minutes after that when Tommy White hit an opposite field grand slam, his first of two home runs on the day and fifth of six extra base hits on the weekend.
LSU coasted the rest of the way, beating the Rebels, 9-3, and sweeping the series to earn a likely NCAA at-large win with its 13th SEC victory in hand. Ole Miss, meanwhile, loses five straight to finish the season and fall to 27-28 overall and 11-19 in the SEC.
“Tough weekend; we don’t swing it well all weekend,” Mike Bianco said. “Don’t get off the field where we keep it to one or two runs. We have to be better in all phases.”
Groff and the Rebels are taught to go home on a down-angle batted ball, but the read is to get in a rundown if the ball is to the pitcher. That would remove the double play chance worst case leave runners at second and third with one out.
The Rebels are below .500 in the regular season for the second straight year. Mike Bianco had won at least 30 games in each of his first 21 seasons prior to that. Ole Miss is 17-43 in the league over the two years. The Rebels had won at least 14 SEC games in every Bianco season but one — 13-17 in 2011 — before 2023.
Ole Miss, the No. 12 and final seed, faces No. 5 seed Mississippi State at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the first round of the SEC Tournament. That’s single elimination, and the winner gets Texas A&M on Thursday.
The Rebels’ season will almost certainly end barring some ridiculously improbable run to the trophy on Sunday, but Ole Miss isn’t even NCAA Tournament eligible without two more wins than losses in Hoover because of overall record.
Ole Miss went 32 SEC innings without a run not via home run — and just three runs total — before the sixth inning on Saturday to make it 8-1. That was also the Rebels’ first hit of the weekend with a runner in scoring position.
Ole Miss went 4-6 in SEC series and got swept three times.
The Rebels had 14 base runners but only the three runs — seven hits, six walks and a hit by pitch. Ole Miss was 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position for the weekend. Mason Nichols gave up five hits and four runs with three walks and one strikeouts. He threw 40 of 68 pitches for strikes.