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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Revenge on the Mind as Rebel Softball Heads to Hattiesburg
4/3/2018 | Softball
| WEDNESDAY - 6 p.m. |
Game 32
Date: Apr. 4, 2018
First Pitch: 6 p.m. CT
Location: Hattiesburg, Miss.
Venue: Southern Miss Softball Complex
Series: Ole Miss leads, 20-12
Last Meeting: Mar. 4, 2018
Southern Miss won, 5-2
Oxford, Miss.
TV: CUSA-TV ($)
Live Stats: OleMissSports.com
Twitter Updates: @OleMissSoftball
LEADING OFF
- Ole Miss returns to the road for a trip south to Hattiesburg to battle its in-state rivals, Southern Miss.
- The Rebels will be looking for revenge over a Golden Eagles side that defeated Ole Miss 5-2 earlier in the year in Oxford at the Ole Miss Classic.
- The contest will be streamed live on CUSA-TV. The service requires a paid subscription, with a 24-hour pass costing $6.95.
- Despite the loss in the most recent matchup, Ole Miss continues to lead the all-time series against USM at 20-12. The Rebels have been victorious in six of the last eight meetings and are 8-5 all-time in Hattiesburg.
- Ole Miss senior pitcher Alyssa Clayton and Southern Miss senior pitcher Kim Crowson were teammates at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
- After Wednesday's game, the Rebels will remain on the road and head directly to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a three-game series Friday through Sunday at LSU.
- In the third edition of the NCAA RPI report, Ole Miss slid up one spot to No. 34.
- All four of Ole Miss' remaining SEC opponents are ranked in the top-20 in the RPI report.
- Ole Miss is coming off of a hard-fought series against then No. 10 Auburn at the Ole Miss Softball Complex. The Tigers took the first two games of the series but the Rebels got the last laugh, coming out victorious in the final game thanks to Amanda Roth's eighth-inning walk-off home run.
- Junior center fielder Kylan Becker became the first Rebel in 2018 to register four hits in a game Sunday against Auburn. Becker's 4-for-4 showing at the plate matched her career-high for hits in a game.
- Junior Brittany Finney swung a hot bat in the final two games of the series, going 4-for-7 with a double.
- Senior right-hander Kaitlin Lee threw all eight innings Sunday against a dangerous Auburn lineup, allowing just one earned run on six hits. It was the 34th win and complete game of Lee's Rebel career, ranking fifth and seventh, respectively, in school history.
SCOUTING REPORT
- Wendy Hogue is in the midst of her 4th season as head coach of Southern Miss. During her time in Hattiesburg, Hogue has registered an 89-113 record, including a 29-52 mark in Conference USA action. Before transitioning to Southern Miss, Hogue spent 10 seasons at the helm of the program at William Carey, an NAIA school that also calls Hattiesburg home. After missing the NAIA postseason in each of her three years, Hogue built WCC into a powerhouse, making six trips to the playoffs in the next seven seasons, finishing with a National Championship runner-up finish in 2014.
- Despite a 3-1 showing at the Ole Miss Classic earlier this season, the Golden Eagles have struggled to a 14-25 overall record, starting off C-USA play at 4-8. The majority of those struggles, though, have been on the road. USM is 11-12 this season in Hattiesburg having swept three games from future Ole Miss opponent UTEP in their most recent home appearance. However, since that sweep the Golden Eagles have lost five-straight road games ahead of Tuesday's game against South Alabama.
- Southern Miss comes into Wednesday's game batting .264 as a team with 41 doubles, eight triples and 10 long balls. USM has been aggressive on the bases, successfully stealing on 52-of-66 attempts. The Golden Eagles are led offensively by freshman outfielder Destini Brown, who is batting .354 with a team-high 20 runs scored and 13 RBIs, going 13-for-15 on stolen base attempts. Fellow freshman Karley Nichols is next in line with a .339 average, with all 20 of her hits going for singles. Senior Ciarra Cherry is the only other USM player batting over .300 at .330. She is tied with Brown for the team lead with 20 runs and has shown the ability to hit for extra bases with five doubles, a triple, three homers and 18 RBIs.
- In the circle, senior Samantha Robles leads the team with 107.2 innings, posting a 4.29 ERA with 71 strikeouts to 34 walks. Robles threw a complete-game against the Rebels in USM's 5-2 win in Oxford, allowing two runs on just six hits. Senior Kim Crowson has tossed 80.0 frames on the rubber, posting a 3.33 ERA. Crowson has been wild at times, surrendering 10 wild pitches and hitting five batters. Senior Jillian Johnson is the only other Golden Eagle with more than 10 innings of work, registering a 3.66 ERA with 22 strikeouts and 28 walks in her 57.1 innings.
SOUTHERN STRUGGLES WITH THE SLAPPERS
Over the last four seasons, Ole Miss has shown to have success against their neighbors to the south when it comes to slapping. Slappers Elantra Cox and Paige McKinney have both had a good deal of success against the Golden Eagles in previous meeting. Over her career, Cox is 6-for-14 against USM with four RBIs and three runs scored. If you take away Cox's 0-for-4 showing at the plate earlier this season, she is batting .600 against Southern Miss with the same run production. Meanwhile, albeit in a smaller sample size, McKinney has also tagged the Golden Eagles for three hits in five at-bats with a pair of runs driven in.
FINN IN FINE FORM
For much of the season junior Brittany Finney has struggled to find her footing at the plate, having registered just three hits in her first 34 at-bats of the season. The former Oklahoma Sooner, however, may have turned the corner. In her last two games Finney has gone 4-for-7 raising her batting average a whopping 83 points to .171.
WHITE HOT HORTON
After starting off the season without a hit in her first seven at-bats, sophomore slapper Kaylee Horton has cemented herself as one of if not the top hitter in Ole Miss' lineup. The Jasper, Alabama native leads the team with a .386 average, having hit safely in eight of her last nine games, registering six multi-hit games in that time frame. Since the beginning of the month of March, Horton is batting .456, driving in and scoring eight runs apiece.
DINGERS = DUBS
While power hitting may not be a calling card for Ole Miss this season, with the Rebels registering 13 home runs on the season, when the Rebs do go long it usually leads to a victory. Ole Miss is 8-1 this season when posting at least one home run. In the lone loss, Ole Miss battled back from down 8-1 at Texas A&M and brought the winning run to the plate in the seventh inning before ultimately falling 8-6.
CLUTCH AUDDY
In her first season in Oxford, UCF transfer catcher Autumn Gillespie has proven that she's got what it takes to come through when her team needs it the most. While batting .291 overall, Gillespie's average spikes to .400 with runners in scoring position. Possibly even more impressive, the Redlands, California native has cashed in on 8-of-10 RBI opportunities with a runner at third and less than two outs.
ROTH'S BLAST CARRIES REBS OVER AUBURN
Ole Miss lost the first two games of the series but was able to get some revenge over Auburn in the final game of the weekend series in Oxford. The Rebels took a 2-0 lead before the Tigers scored an earned run in the sixth and an unearned run in the seventh to force the game into extra innings. After Kaitlin Lee shut down Auburn in the eighth, however, Amanda Roth finished things off in the home half with a line drive deep fly that just stayed inside the left field foul pole for the walk-off win. It was the second walk-off dinger of the season for Ole Miss, following Alex Schneider's two-run bomb extras during the first week of the season against Lamar.
ON DECK
At the conclusion of this weekend's series, Ole Miss will hit the road once again for a four-game road trip. The Rebels will first make a trip down south to battle in-state foe Southern Miss on Wednesday in Hattiesburg before heading West to face off against LSU in a three-game weekend series in Baton Rouge Friday through Sunday.
For all Ole Miss softball news and information, go to OleMissSports.com and follow the Rebels on Twitter at @OleMissSoftball, on Facebook at Ole Miss Softball and on Instagram at Instagram.com/olemisssoftball. Fans can also follow head coach Mike Smith on Twitter at @msmithsb16. Additionally, fans can get a behind the scenes look at Ole Miss softball and all of Ole Miss athletics on Snapchat under the handle, @WeAreOleMiss.
