Ole Miss saved its best for last in what was a must-have to keep any home postseason hopes alive.
The Rebels, after falling the first two days at Oklahoma, dominated the Sooners, 7-3 to salvage the final game of the series. Ole Miss, with two weekends left in league play, is 33-15 overall and 13-11 in SEC action. The Rebels are 1-1 in nonconference games against SEC teams.
Oklahoma is tied with Rebels at 13-11 following the series win. The Rebels visit Mississippi State and host Auburn the rest of the way. History says Ole Miss needs at least 16 SEC wins to be in host contention.
Mason Morris entered with the bases loaded and two outs in the second inning, exited the jam with a ground ball and highlighted a nice bullpen effort for Ole Miss. He gave up a run in 3.2 innings.
Morris scattered three hits and threw 74 pitches with four strikeouts.
Will McCausland allowed a run in 2.2 innings and threw just 28 pitches with a triple and sacrifice fly in the seventh his only blemish.
Mason Nichols started and yielded a run in the first inning and exited after waking three to load the bases a frame later. He threw 27 of 48 pitches for strikes and retired five of 11 batters faced.
“One of your best bullets is still in the gun on Sunday,” Mike Bianco said about Mason Morris. “We knew we’d have a short leash on Nichols just because you want to make sure you fire, maybe our best bullet, in time when it matters. They were on Nichols early.
“We didn’t have the luxury of getting Morris up and down. Needed him to come in, and he put up zeroes.”
Austin Fawley was one of three Rebels with multiple hits and connected for his team-high 15th home run of the season. Ole Miss scored in five different innings. Isaac Humphrey and Luke Cheng also had two hits. Fawley and Cheng hit doubles, and Humphrey had a triple among the Rebels’ 11 total hits.
“We had more traffic on the bases, and they made a couple errors,” Bianco said. “We were too scattered the last two games with our hits. We didn’t walk or get hit or allow them to make mistakes.”
Every Rebel who had an at-bat had a hit outside of Will Furniss and Judd Utermark. Ole Miss scored three runs with two outs including one on a pinch hit by Hayden Federico. Ole Miss, which struck out 14 times, was just 4-for-22 with runners on base but limited Oklahoma to seven bat-bats with a runner in scoring position.
Oklahoma stranded five runners in the first two innings but only one the rest of the game. Ole Miss took the lead for good in the third inning on a Luke Hill single that scored Cheng.
The Rebels allowed 10 runs total in the three-game series.
“Coach Bianco challenged us to be tougher,” Humphrey said. “We gave away too many at-bats the first two days.”
