OXFORD | The positive energy turned to palpable quiet, nervous fidgeting and even requests to a higher power in the waning moments on Sunday night.
With each free pass and runner tightening the four-run margin Ole Miss achieved in the top of the ninth, Thomas Dillard’s dad, Tom, paced above the home dugout — head down and covering a lot of ground with glances up at the action. A middle-aged woman in section M held her eyes open with two fingers and bounced back and forth in her seat, saying nothing but wincing after each pitch. The young girl beside her prayed for one more strike or out as the situation required.
Bargaining and pleading were plentiful among the 10,891 in attendance, and the suffering silence finally turned to exuberance and relief when Houston Roth’s sixth pitch and third strike sent Tennessee Tech leadoff Alex Junior swinging without contact.
Two runners stranded, one 90 feet away. A third out that seemed impossible to get. A 9-8 victory that featured six combined ninth-inning runs and sent Ole Miss to the regional final that begins at 12 p.m. on Monday. An in necessary game is scheduled for 6 p.m., and the opponent is to be determined as the Eagles and Missouri State — winners over Saint Louis earlier Sunday — didn’t throw a first pitch until 9:45 p.m.
“An unbelievable college baseball game, and you could tell a lot was riding on it,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “It was four hours but it felt like 12.”
The Rebels (48-15) tied the school record for wins in a season and now sit in the best seat, getting two chances on Monday to move on to the super regional round. Ole Miss never trailed but also never added on before Tennessee Tech tied (49-10) the game on three separate occasions through seven innings.
Ole Miss took a 6-5 lead in the eighth when Grae Kessinger hit a two-out double — his second of the day — to score Anthony Servideo from first base. Servideo was pinch running for Tim Rowe who struck out but made it to first on a ball past the catcher on strike three.
The celebration seemed to begin an inning later when the Rebels added three more runs courtesy of Will Golsan’s takeover of the latter part of the game. He brought in a run with a single, and then with the bases loaded, Servideo walked, and the ball got past catcher Brennon Kaleiwahea again, allowing one run to score on the walk, but Golsan hit third and never stopped from second, also crossing the plate easily.
Parker Caracci, who added to his season-long list of heroics earlier in the game, took the four-run lead into the bottom of the ninth. He entered in the seventh with a tie game and inherited two on with no outs. Caracci stranded the bases loaded and also gave Ole Miss a shutdown inning in the eighth.
But in the ninth, after a four-pitch strikeout, he threw eight of the next 10 pitches for balls, walking two in the process and then loading the bases with a 1-2 hit by pitch. Greer Holston, who brought a 35-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio into the game, went full on two straight batters, got a pop out but walked in a run and then gave up a two-run sharp single to Collin Harris to make it a one-run game.
Bianco made his second change of the inning and brought in Roth, who had never pitched a ninth inning his his career. The hometown sophomore went full with Junior before the swing-and-miss that ended the 4 hour, 1 minute marathon.
“We didn’t do a lot of things well enough,” Tech coach Matt Bragga said. “That put us in a horrendous position and Ole Miss took advantage of it. I’m proud of our guys for fighting, especially there at the end.”
Tennessee Tech out-hit Ole Miss 12-to-9 and had three solo home runs. The Rebels, stressing Tech into bad decisions throughout the game, worked eight walks and three hit by pitches.
Ole Miss took a 2-0 lead in the first when Kessinger scampered home on a walk-wild pitch, and then Golsan had an RBI single off the body of starter Marcus Evey. Tech tied it with back-to-back home runs in the third, and then the teams traded two runs in the fifth and a single run in the sixth.
Ole Miss starter Brady Feigl was very sharp early but lost command and eventually gave up eight hits and four runs in 4.2 innings. Will Ethridge wasn’t as good as his SEC Tournament heroics, and he gave up a run and three hits in 1.1 innings, leaving the mess for Caracci in the seventh.
But Golsan, Caracci and finally Roth led the way for a tough time to find its trademark moment through two games in the postseason. The Rebels are 30-4 at Swayze Field this season and have won 13 of their last 15 games including six in a row.
The work isn’t done, as Ole Miss gets the nation’s wins leader who took it to the wire or a Missouri State team that has been to super regionals two of the last three years, but two wins to start the tournament were necessary, and the Rebels accomplished it.
It just took plenty of time, pacing and prayer along the way.
