PEARL – Ole Miss will need to some serious soul searching to find a way out of its offensive problems as it heads to Arkansas this weekend. The Rebels were beaten for the fourth time in four games by arch-rival Mississippi State 7-3 Tuesday night in the Governor’s Cup game at Trustmark Park.Â
Ole Miss will take a three-game slide to Fayetteville for a SEC series with the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Rebs are 31-14 overall and 11-10 in the SEC. State goes to 32-10 with the win.
After striking out 30 times in the final two games against Georgia, the Rebels wiffed 13 more times Tuesday against six State pitchers. Even worse, many are coming with men on base. Eight were left after the first six innings.
Brendan Sweeney fanned in four in the first three innings and left with a 5-0 lead. Five Bulldog relivers combined for nine strikeouts and just three hits.
Ole Miss was stretched pitching wise following Saturday night’s 14-inning loss. Owen Kelly lasted just 1.2 innings and was tagged with the loss, giving up 5 runs, all earned. Three Rebel relievers kept their team in it with six combined strikeouts. Wil Lippert had the best outing with three scoreless.
Dom Decker had two hits to lead the Rebel batters.
Ole Miss finally got something going from the latter half of the lineup. Two walks were followed by a double from Cole Reuter to make it 5-2. Dom Decker singled in Reuter to make it a game at 5-3.
Utermark’s terrible night continued by leaving the bases loaded on a called third strike.
State grabbed the momentum back using the bunt to squeeze in Mileweski for a 6-3 lead in the sixth inning.
The Bulldogs made it 7-3 scoring another run off a bunt.
Ole Miss got its first two hitters on but then were left there as Swinney retired the next three.
State, on the other hand, produced with two outs. Jacob Parker had a two-out single to right to score one. Bryce Chance made it 2-0 with a hit to right-center and Kevin Mileweski doubled in two runs to cap a four-run, first inning for the Bulldogs.
They added a run in the second after three hits. Parker got his second RBI that scored Reese for a 5-0 lead.
Ole Miss had a chance to cut into the lead in the fifth with two straight walks after an out. Like what happened in the last two games with Georgia,the Rebels struck out with men on base. They left six men stranded in five innings. Five of the outs came by strikeout against the top three in the Reb lineup.
