The University of Mississippi Athletics
Baseball Hosts LSU
6/21/1999 | Baseball
May 8, 1998
REBELS HOST LSU IN FINAL SEC SERIES OF THE YEAR: Ole Miss hosts No. 2 LSU in the seasons final SEC series of the year. The three-game series begins Friday at 7 p.m. at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field. Saturdays game will be at 4 p.m. and Sundays series-finale is scheduled for 1 p.m. Ole Miss enters the series 28-22 overall and 11-14 in the SEC. LSU comes in 40-13 on the year, 20-7 in the SEC and looking for its seventh SEC regular season champion of the 1990s.
Game #51 vs. #2 LSU, Friday, May 8 at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field, 7 pmGame #52 vs. #2 LSU, Saturday, May 9 at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field, 4 pmGame #53 vs. #2 LSU, Sunday, May 10 at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field, 1 pm
HEAD COACH PAT HARRISON: Pat Harrison is in his second year as head coach of the Ole Miss Rebel baseball team. In his two seasons at the helm of the program, Harrison has compiled a 50-53 record. In six-plus years as a head coach, the 51-year old Harrison has compiled a 184-170-1 record. Prior to coming to Ole Miss, Harrison spent two seasons as head coach at Pepperdine University in 1995 and 1996. During his two years with the Waves, Harrison was 69-38-1 and led Pepperdine to a 1995 West Coast Conference championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Harrison also spent three years as head coach at The Master's College (1988-90), an NAIA school in Los Angeles tallying a 65-79 mark with the Mustangs. Harrison has also served as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Southern California (1973-76), Oral Roberts (1977-1986), Washington State (1987) and Oklahoma (1991-94) during his career. While as an assistant at Oklahoma, he helped guide the Sooners to a 1994 College World Series championship.
SCOUTING THE LSU TIGERS: LSU comes into this weekends series with Ole Miss ranked as high as No. 2 in the country in the latest Baseball America poll. The Tigers are ranked No. 3 in the Collegiate Baseball, Baseball Weekly/ABCA and The Sporting News polls. LSU (40-13, 20-7 SEC) needs two wins this weekend against the Rebels to secure its seventh Southeastern Conference regular season champion of the 1990s. Senior first baseman Eddy Furniss is the SECs career leader in both home runs (74) and RBIs (294), and is tied for second in the SEC in home runs heading into the weekend with teammate Trey McClure at 22. Furniss is also LSUs leading hitter with a .395 average and has driven in 62 runs. McClure is hitting .328 and has team-leading 68 RBIs. Sophomore catcher Brad Cresse is hitting .331 and has 21 home runs and 67 RBIs, giving the Tigers three players with 20 or more home runs. As a team, the Tigers have belted 111 home runs, tied for tops in the conference with Florida. However, the Tigers rank last in the SEC in hitting with a .294 average but has the conferences top pitching staff with a team ERA of 4.13.
SCOREBOARD WATCHING: Ole Miss players and fans will have great interest in the out-of-town scoreboard this weekend, especially the Arkansas-Mississippi State score. For Ole Miss to qualify for the SEC Tournament, May 13-17 in Birmingham, the Rebels must win one more game than Arkansas or two more games than Mississippi State does this weekend to earn the final wild card spot to the SEC Tournament. The Razorbacks and Bulldogs start a three-game series tonight in Starkville.
HARRISON WINS 50TH GAME AT OLE MISS: Last Saturdays 10-8 win over Georgia was head coach Pat Harrisons 50th win as head coach at Ole Miss.
HUISMAN MOVES INTO TIE FOR SECOND ON CAREER HIT LIST: Senior shortstop Jason Huisman (Thornton, Ill./Thornton H.S.) went 4-for-10 last weekend against Georgia to move into a tie for second-place on the Ole Miss career hit list with David Dellucci (1992-95) with 247 career hits. The All-SEC candidate has also tallied the fourth-highest single-season hit total in school history with 81. However, if Ole Miss fails to qualify for the SEC Tournament, it is a long shot that Huisman will be able to break the school career and single-season hit records. Huisman is 15 hits away from Rebel career hit leader Kevin Kessinger (1989-92) with 262 and needs 13 hits to tie Delluccis single-season hit mark of 94 set back in 1995.
HUISMAN REACHES ANOTHER MILESTONE: Jason Huisman surpassed yet another milestone during his senior season, becoming the first Rebel ever to hit 20 or more home runs in a single-season. Huisman belted numbers 20 and 21 last Friday at Georgia, and has 31 for his career to rank third on the schools all-time list. Huisman has set single-season school records for home runs (21) and RBIs (68) this season and is on pace to break the school single-season slugging percentage record currently held by Ken Houser with a .767 slugging percentage back in 1983. Huisman has a .777 slugging percentage heading into this weekend.
GOING THE DISTANCE: Senior right-hander Lance Tolbert has gone the distance in each of his last four starts. He scattered 10 hits, walked one and tied a career-high with six strikeouts while tossing a complete game in his last start, a 7-1 win over Georgia last Friday. Tolbert leads the SEC with six complete games and is 5-5 with 3.84 ERA.
REBELS SECURE FIRST WINNING MARK SINCE 1995: With Ole Miss two-game sweep of Georgia in last weekends weather-abbreviated series, the Rebels secured themselves of their first winning record since 1995. The Rebels 11 conference wins coming into the LSU series is also the most Ole Miss has posted since winning 14 in 1995. The Rebels finished that 1995 season 40-22 and 14-12 in the SEC and earned a berth in the NCAA Atlantic I Regional.
HOME RUN DERBY: For the first time since 1977, Ole Miss has at least three players with 10 or more home runs on the year and has four players with 10-plus home runs for the first time in school history. The trio of Jason Huisman, Bobby Kielty (Moreno Valley, Calif./Riverside J.C.), Brad Henderson (Tupelo, Miss/Tupelo H.S.) and joined the 1977-trio of Mark Barnthouse, Mike Pomeranz and Mike Templeton as the only set of teammates to hit 10 or more home runs in the same year at Ole Miss. Sophomore Michael Rosamond became the fourth Rebel to record double digits in home runs on April 21 at Memphis, marking the first time in school history that the Rebels have had four players with 10 or more home runs in the same year. Huisman leads the team with 21 home runs, Kielty has hit 15, Henderson 13 and Rosamond 12. The Rebels have also set a new school record for home runs this season with 89 coming into this weekends series, surpassing the old mark of 66 set back in 1977.
1998 TEAM MAKING MARK IN HISTORY: The 1998 Ole Miss Rebels is making their case to be hailed as the most powerful team in school history. The Rebels have broken team records for home runs, RBIs, doubles and total bases and are closing in on the school record for runs scored. Ole Miss has hit 89 home runs this year to surpass the old mark of 66 set back in 1977, have recorded 376 RBIs to better the 1995 record of 367, hit 126 doubles to break the old mark of 120 also set in 1995 and have tallied 960 total bases to eclipse the old standard of 871 set in 1991. The Rebels need to score nine runs this weekend to tie the school record of 410 set in 1995.
ANOTHER FIRST: Ole Miss recorded another school first as the Rebels have three players with 50 or more runs this season. Brad Henderson leads the Rebels with 59, Bobby Kielty is second with 58 and Jason Huisman has scored 50. Ole Miss has twice had two players scored 50 or more runs in the same season. Last season Henderson scored 60 and Scott Eskra 50. In 1986, Kyle Gordon and Bubba Simon scored 53 and 51 runs, respectively.
CRAMBLITT RECORDS WIN NO. 9 ON TUESDAY: Sophomore right-hander Joey Cramblitt (Meridian, Miss./Mississippi School of Math & Science) has had a terrific season as the Rebels mid-week starter. Cramblitt is 9-2 this season with a 3.63 ERA and is first Rebel pitcher to record at least eight wins in a season since 1995. His nine wins is tied for the third-highest single-season total in school history. Cramblitt pitched a complete shutout of Memphis in Ole Miss last non-conference game of the year on April 28 in Oxford, using just 99 pitches.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Talk about a team having a family atmosphere to it. The Ole Miss Rebels have not two, but three brothers in uniform this spring. After Josh Huisman joined older brother Jason by transferring to Ole Miss from Rend Lake Community College last spring, Justin, a freshman, enrolled at Ole Miss this past fall. The trio has made 11 starts together this season with the most recent being against Alabama last Friday night. In games with all three brothers in the starting line-up, Ole Miss is 6-5 this season. Against Northeast Louisiana on March 17, the trio went a combined 7-for-13 with four home runs, eight RBIs and scored seven runs with Josh leading the way with a 4-for-4 performance including two home runs, three RBIs and four runs scored.
OLE MISS-LSUSERIES INFORMATIONLSU leads series 121-112-2 since 1924
LAST YEARS SERIES: at LSU 3-0 IN BATON ROUGE: LSU leads 56-35 since 1947.IN OXFORD: Ole Miss leads 63-36 since 1947.LAST LSU SWEEP: 1997, 3-0 in Baton Rouge.LAST OLE MISS SWEEP: 1983, 2-0 in Oxford; 1982 3-0 in Oxford.LONGEST REBEL WIN STREAK: 8 (1977-1978LONGEST LSU WIN STREAK: 9 (1990-92)CURRENT STREAK: LSU W7
SERIES NOTES: LSU leads the series 23-4 in the decade of the 90s ... Ole Miss last series win against LSU was in 1995 (2-1) in Oxford.
MAKING A RUN: After a 7-5 win over Mississippi State on March 21 in Starkville moved the Rebels to 4-3 in the conference, Ole Miss dropped eight of its next nine conference games making the possibility of post-season bleak. However, the Rebels have put themselves back into play-off contention by winning six of their last nine SEC contests, starting with a dramatic10-6 win at Florida on April 12. Two keys to the Rebels last season surge has been the improved pitching of senior right-hander Lance Tolbert (Brandon, Miss./UAB) and junior right-hander Chad Davis (Ocean Springs, Miss./Mississippi Gulf Coast C.C.) and the hitting of freshman third baseman/designated hitter Robert Shelton (Columbus, Miss./New Hope H.S.), who hit a pinch-hit grand slam in the ninth to give Ole Miss its win at Florida, and sophomore outfielder Michael Rosamond (Madison, Miss./Madison Central H.S.). The following shows the improved performance by the Rebels in those key areas to spur their late-season charge.
MARCH 22-APRIL 11 PITCHING Opponents Avg. .376 TEAM ERA 9.35KEY PERFORMERS: Chad Davis, 0-0, 6.75 ERA (4 APP, 6.2 IP, 5 ER); Lance Tolbert, 0-2, 15.75 ERA (2 GS, 8.0 IP, 14 ER),
HITTING Batting Avg. .306KEY PERFORMERS: Robert Shelton, .227 (5-22), 0 HR, 1 RBI; Michael Rosamond, .143 BA (2-14), 1 HR, 4 RBI.
APRIL 12-MAY 2 PITCHING Opponents Avg. .275 TEAM ERA 5.64KEY PERFORMERS: Lance Tolbert, 3-1, 3.27 ERA (4 GS, 33.0 IP, 12 ER), 4 CG; Chad Davis 1-0, 1.13 ERA (3 APP, 8 IP, 1 ER).
HITTING Batting Avg. .309KEY PERFORMERS: Robert Shelton, .429 BA (9-21), 3 HR, 8 RBI; Michael Rosamond, .371 (13-35), 3 HR, 6 RBIs.