Ole Miss opens up SEC baseball at home against Texas A&M
By: Adam Brown, Sports Editor of Hottytoddy.com
adam.brown@hottytoddy.com
The Ole Miss baseball team returns home to the diamond this weekend to take on the Texas A&M Aggies.
Ole Miss (20-2, 2-1SEC) sits in the top ten in every collegiate baseball poll in the country, with Baseball America having the Rebels at number six in the nation. The Rebels opened SEC play by winning a series over the Arkansas Razorbacks two games to one, following a sweep of the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks in a midweek tilt.
Junior Preston Overbey jumpstarted the Rebels run against the Razorbacks on Friday night, smashing his first career grand slam to help push the Rebels to a 7-1 win. On Saturday, Arkansas got the best of the Rebels, defeating them 10-1. When Ole Miss returned to the ball park on Sunday, senior Tanner Bailey recorded his best career performance on the mound, working 5.1 innings and giving up five hits, on no walks and striking out a career-high nine batters in a scoreless outing.
Texas A&M (15-7, 3-0 SEC) is making their first ever trip into Oxford. The Aggies are coming off an opening SEC weekend sweep of the Georgia Bulldogs. After whipping the Bulldogs, the Aggies took down Dallas Baptist 2-0 on Tuesday.
The Aggies are led at the plate by senior Mikey Reynolds, who is hitting .488 with 17 runs scored on the year. Texas A&M as a team have a collective batting average of .283, with five home runs, driving in 95 RBI’s and manufacturing a total of 104 runs so far on the season.
Texas A&M Head Coach Rob Childress’s pitching rotation for this weekend series is: senior RHP Kyle Martin (Friday), sophomore RHP Daniel Mengdon (Saturday), with Sunday to be announced. Coach Mike Bianco is going with Wahl, Mayers and Smith.
Prior to this weekend’s series, the Rebels and the Aggies have only faced each other five times, with the Aggies owning the series 3-2. The first time Ole Miss and Texas A&M met on the diamond was in 1998, when the Rebels defeated the Aggies 17-3 in the opening game of the series. The Aggies went on to take the series by winning Saturday and Sunday. Last season, the two teams met in the NCAA Regionals in College Station, where Ole Miss beat A&M by a score of 6-3.
First pitch for Texas A&M and Ole Miss is set for 6:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday (ESPNU) and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
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