A four-homer inning propelled Ole Miss baseball to a 19-2 victory in seven innings over Murray State Tuesday evening at Swayze Field.
In total, the Rebels (30-12) launched a season-high five home runs against the Racers (24-17) en route to scoring a 2026 best 19 runs. In total, Ole Miss has surpassed the 10-run mark for the 11th time this season.
Seven of Ole Miss’ starters recorded a hit and four had at least two. Judd Utermark and Owen Paino headed the charge, recording three hits and four RBI each. Two of Utermark’s hits went yard to move himself into a tie with Ole Miss all-timer Tim Elko for the second-most in a career by a Rebel.
Owen Kelly got his fifth start of the season and likely had his best day as a Rebel thus far. He pitched four no-hit innings while striking out a season-high six to earn the win. Leo Odom, Noah Allen and Jake Reigert pitched in relief to close the day. Murray State starter Preston Chaudoin took the loss.
The Rebels attacked first in the bottom of the second. With the bases loaded, the Rebels tacked two on the board with consecutive hard-hit grounders from Paino and Dom Decker.
With Kelly keeping the Racers at bay, the Rebels caught fire in the bottom of the fourth when their home run barrage began. It started when Utermark launched his first of the day to score himself and Tristan Bissetta, who plated Decker the at-bat prior. Hayden Federico and Topher Jones launched their second respective homers of the season in consecutive at-bats. Austin Fawley reached on a single, then Owen Paino joined the distance party with his third homer of the season.
Ole Miss didn’t slow in the next inning, but it would be scoring runs with contact hits and poor pitching from Murray State. Utermark once again got the show started with his second homer of the day to send himself at Bissetta home. The Rebels would then take four consecutive free bases to plate a run. Kelven Perera entered as a pinch hitter and drove in the first two RBI of his career.
Paino got his third hit of the day to drive Perera home, before a double from Decker cleared the bases once again. The Rebels had seven runs in the inning before the Racers had recorded an out.
Brett Moseley would get hit by a pitch to load the bases before Will Furniss extended his hitting streak to eight games with a single that drove in Paino. Federico forced an unassisted fielder’s choice to first to send Decker home, which would be Ole Miss’ last run scored.
The Rebels scored 17 runs in a two-inning span, scoring eight and nine runs in the fourth and fifth innings, respectively. They batted around in both those innings, the 13th game this season Ole Miss has done so at least once. Ole Miss hasn’t had two consecutive innings with at least that many runs scored since 2018.
Ole Miss plays host to Georgia this weekend with the first game slated to start at 6:30 p.m. CT.