Rebs Face Cavaliers in Semi-Finals of CWS

You knew they were going to do it the hard way.
Over the past few nights the Ole Miss Rebels have scratched back through the loser’s bracket with some great pitching and timely hitting. Now they get another shot at the Virginia Cavaliers.
Ole Miss (48-20) eliminated the TCU Horned Frogs from the College World Series with 6-4 victory on Thursday night. The Rebels bats came back to life as they  stroked 11 hits on the night with the whole lineup producing.
Coming into the game, Ole Miss was batting a meager .105 in the CWS. Against TCU, the Rebels hit .306 as a club. The team also doubled their run production from the first two games combined. Ever since the opening game with Virginia, the Rebels have been hitting into some hard luck. Against TCU, Ole Miss hit like the explosive offensive team that everyone in the SEC and Oxford knows.
Will Allen and Sikes Orvis got back to what they’ve done all season long, driving in the critical runs sitting out there on the bases.

With the win, Ole Miss moves into the semifinals of the CWS. The Rebels are 4-0 mark on the year in the NCAA tournament when facing elimination.
Only two teams remain from the SEC left in the CWS field.
Virginia enters tonights game as the only national seed remaining in Omaha. The Cavaliers  are one win away from playing in the championship series agains Texas or Vanderbilt.
In their last two games, the Cavaliers have won in their last at-bat in walk-off fashion. On Tuesday, when they faced TCU in the winner’s bracket, the game went 15 innings. Once the game was tied at five runs apiece, neither club could get a runner past second base for eight innings of play.
When Virginia played the Rebels in their first CWS game, they held Ole Miss to one run on one hit. Left-handed starter Nathan Kirby seemed untouchable. The Cavaliers eventually prevailed on an RBI double by first baseman Mike Papi.
Ole Miss will have to beat Virginia twice to advance to the championship round.
The Rebels and the Cavaliers play tonight at TD Ameritrade Park at 7 p.m., on ESPN and can also be heard on channel 91 of SirusXM radio and on the Ole Miss Radio Network.
—Adam Brown is HottyToddy.com sports editor.