The University of Mississippi Athletics
Tuesday, March 19
Pearl, Miss.
6 PM
Ole Miss
vs
Southern Miss
Baseball Heads to Trustmark Park for Matchup With Southern Miss
3/18/2024 | Baseball
| Tuesday, March 19 6 p.m. CT  |
| PROJECTED STARTERS Ole Miss: RHP Riley Maddox 1-1, 5.03 ERA, 15 K, 7 BB Southern Miss: RHP Cole Boswell 0-0, 5.87 ERA, 11 K, 7 BB |
OXFORD, Miss. – Red-hot Ole Miss Baseball (15-6, 2-1 SEC) has won nine of its last 10 games and will now turn its attention to a Tuesday night neutral site matchup against Southern Miss (14-6, 3-0 SBC) at Trustmark Park.
LEADING OFF
- Ole Miss opened SEC play last weekend with a series win over No. 20 South Carolina, taking two out of three games from the Gamecocks.
- The Rebels have now won their opening conference series seven times in the last eight seasons.
- Andrew Fischer is hitting .423 with an OPS of 1.522, four home runs, 11 RBI, and eight runs scored over his last seven games.
- Freshman Brayden Randle is hitting .375 with six runs scored and four RBI in his eight starts so far this season.
- The Ole Miss pitching staff is ranked 26th in the NCAA in total ERA, coming into the week with a 3.98.
- The bullpen gave up just one run last weekend over 12.1 innings of work bringing their ERA down to 3.12.
- Ole Miss is third in the NCAA in walks drawn (157), averaging 7.48 per game. They are one of four SEC teams at the top of the category.
- Jackson Ross leads the SEC, and is third in the nation, in walks with 26, averaging 1.24 per game. He has reached base in 19-straight games.
- Connor Spencer has four saves this season, tied at the top of the SEC with Arkansas' Gabe Gaeckle.
- Ole Miss will travel to Knoxville, Tennessee this weekend for a three-game set against No. 8 Tennessee.
SCOUTING REPORT
Christian Ostrander is in his first season as head coach for Southern Miss after previous head coach Scott Berry retired from his 14 season career in Hattiesburg. Ostrander has been with the program for six years overseeing the pitching staff for the Golden Eagles. He spent the last two seasons as associate head coach and has helped lead the USM to five NCAA regional berths.
Last season, Southern Miss had a 46-20 (22-8 SBC) record, leading it to the opportunity to host the Hattiesburg Super Regional for just the second time in program history. This marked back-to-back years the Golden Eagles found their way back to the supers. However, Southern Miss fell 5-0 to Tennessee in the final game of the Hattiesburg Super Regional.
Southern Miss' starting pitchers Niko Mazza and Billy Oldham earned selection to the 2024 Sun Belt Conference preseason team. In the 2023 season, Mazza pitched in 21 games including 13 starts and posted a 5-2 record with two saves to go along with a 4.34 ERA. Oldham appeared in 18 games and made 13 starts for the Golden Eagles. The right-handed pitcher also posted an 8-3 record with a 4.21 ERA.
Outfielders Dalton McIntyre and Billy Butler are two big hitters for Southern Miss. McIntyre is batting .391 and has recorded 25 hits with 11 RBIs this season. Butler is posting a .356 at the plate and has contributed 16 hits and four home runs to the books for the Golden Eagles.
Southern Miss is currently 14-6 (3-0 SBC) and is coming off a 7-5 win against Marshall University on Sunday which earned it the series sweep.
This matchup is the second-most-played non-conference rivalry in Ole Miss baseball history. The Rebels have won 83 of the 136 meetings. The two teams played only once last year after the Trustmark Park game was canceled due to weather. The Rebels earned a 11-5 win at Swayze Field.
REBS IN RELIEF
The Rebel bullpen gave up just one run last weekend against South Carolina, working 12.1 innings over the three games. The group is now sporting a 3.12 ERA, second-lowest in the SEC behind only Arkansas, and sixth-lowest in the NCAA. They lead the SEC in total strikeouts with 124 and are averaging 11.7 per game.
The bullpen is holding opposing hitters to a .199 batting average and has only given up four home runs in 95.1 innings of work.
THROW HIM THE CHAIR
The Ole Miss pitching staff posted double-digit strikeout numbers in six of their last nine games. Their 224 total strikeouts is the ninth-highest total in the nation and they rank 14th in K/9, averaging 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings.
Connor Spencer boasts the highest strikeout average, converting 12 of the 18 outs he has collected this season by way of the strikeout. Liam Doyle is right behind him, averaging 17.8 strikeouts per game. In his last two starts he has 18 punchouts, including 10 last weekend against South Carolina, the most by any Rebel in a single game this season.
CAPTAIN(S) CLUTCH
Ethan Lege and Jackson Ross have been Ole Miss' two most clutch hitters when at the plate with two outs in an inning. Lege is hitting .462 (12-for-26) with 12 RBI with two outs and Ross is hitting .348 (8-for-23) with seven RBI in the same situation. The Rebels as a team are hitting .263 and have scored 50 runs with two outs in an inning.
GETTING THEIR STEPS IN
Ole Miss has drawn the third-highest number of walks in the nation with 157 free passes in 21 games. The Rebels are averaging 7.48 walks per game and are one of four teams from the SEC at the top of the national leaderboard (South Carolina, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, and Georgia). They are just two walks off of the national lead held by South Carolina and Texas A&M. Their 157 walks come out to 14,130 total feet or 2.68 miles of free bases.
Jackson Ross is third in the NCAA and leads the SEC with 26 total walks himself. He is averaging 1.24 walks per game, also the most in the SEC. Luke Hill ranks sixth in the SEC with 18 walks.
During their series against High Point, the Rebels set a new single-game program record for walks with 19 in game three.
BOMB SQUAD
The Rebels hit 10 home runs in their three-game series against High Point, doing something that has only been done once before in the Mike Bianco Era. The last time an Ole Miss team hit 10 or more home runs in a three-game series was in 2020 against Princeton just before the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 2020, the feat had not been accomplished since 1998.
POWER CYCLE
In their 25-2 win over High Point, the Rebels accomplished the incredibly rare feat of completing the home run cycle in just the first inning. Ethan Groff led off the inning with a solo home run followed by a grand slam by Will Furniss. With one out in the inning, Reagan Burford hit a two-RBI home run and then Jackson Ross completed the cycle with a two-out, three-RBI shot five batters later.
RUNNING AWAY WITH IT
Ole Miss scored 25 runs against High Point in the series finale, falling just three runs short of the single-game record set in 1989. Their 25 runs were the most scored in one game since March 20, 2019 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff (W, 25-0). It was just the sixth time in the last six seasons that the Rebels have broken the 20-run mark in a game.
They scored 11 runs in just the first inning of play, the most in a single inning since April 26, 2018 against LSU. In total, 15 hitters came to the plate, seven had hits in the inning, five drew walks, and five drove in runs.
Keep up with all the latest news and information on the Rebels by following Ole Miss baseball on X at @OleMissBSB, on Facebook at Facebook.com/OleMissBaseball, on Instagram at Instagram.com/officialolemissbsb and on TikTok at @olemissbsb. Also, follow head coach Mike Bianco on X at @CoachMikeBianco.
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