Kylan Becker Named SEC Co-Player Of The Week

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After leading Ole Miss softball to a pair of walk-off victories over No. 13 Alabama, sophomore OF Kylan Becker has been named SEC Co-Player of the Week, the league office announced Tuesday.

Becker splits the SEC Player of the Week honors with Auburn’s Kasey Cooper. It marks the second weekly honor of Becker’s career after she was named SEC Freshman of the Week last May. She earned Ole Miss’ third weekly honor of 2017 after Dylinn Stancil was named Freshman of the Week, and Elantra Cox earned Player of the Week honors back in February.

Becker finished the week 6-for-15 at the plate, helping No. 20 Ole Miss to a 3-1 record, including the team’s first-ever series win over Alabama. She went 3-for-4 in the win over Jacksonville State, and went on to record the walk-off hit in the final two games of the Alabama series, both RBI singles, lifting the Rebels to their third SEC series win.

Through 51 games, the Miami, Florida native is the team’s second-leading hitter overall with a .365 average and 20 RBI, and has paved the way so far offensively in SEC play with a .323 clip.

Becker and the Rebels return to action Wednesday night to host Southern Miss in the home finale at 6 p.m. on SEC Network.

For all Ole Miss Softball news and information, go to OleMissSports.com and follow the Rebels on Twitter at @OleMissSoftball, on Facebook at Ole Miss Softball and on Instagram at Instagram.com/olemisssoftball. Fans can also follow head coach Mike Smith on Twitter at @msmithsb16. Additionally fans can get a behind the scenes look at Ole Miss Athletics on Snapchat under the handle, @WeAreOleMiss.

Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports

Ole Miss Men’s Tennis Earns 24^th Straight NCAA Bid

For the 24^th consecutive year, the Ole Miss men’s tennis team will be playing tennis in May, as the NCAA announced the 64-team bracket Tuesday. 

The Rebels (16-9) earned the No. 2 seed in the UCLA regional and will face UC Santa Barbara in the first round, May 12 in Los Angeles, California. UCLA, the No. 5 seed overall, is hosting the first and second rounds and will face Army in the first round. The winners will meet on May 13 for a berth in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in Athens, Georgia.

Notables…

• This marks the 26^th overall NCAA appearance for the Rebels. Ole Miss owns the fifth longest consecutive NCAA appearance streak in the nation with 24 straight. The Rebels earned their first ever NCAA bid in 1989 and then again in 1992 and 1994. They have been every year since then.

• UC Santa Barbara (19-5) won the Big West Championship to earn an automatic bid.

• The Rebels are 1-0 all-time against UCSB. They beat the Gauchos 4-0 in the Sweet Sixteen in 1997 at UCLA.

• This is the second time for Ole Miss to play the first two rounds at UCLA. The Rebels played there in 2011 and beat UC Irvine 4-1 before falling to the Bruins in a very close match, 4-3. 

• The Rebels are led by junior All-American Gustav Hansson, who is ranked No. 19 with a 20-11 overall record, 11-7 at No. 1 singles. He has won six in a row.

• Sophomore Fabian Fallert owns a 11-match win streak at 18-3 in dual matches. He finished 10-1 in the SEC.

• Fallert is part of the No. 23 ranked doubles team with Grey Hamilton. 

• Senior Ricardo Jorge and junior Zvonimir Babic are 10-1 in doubles, and Tim Sandkaulen and Filip Kraljevic are 7-2.

Thoughts from head coach Toby Hansson…

“We’re excited to go out to the West Coast again for the NCAAs. The guys are looking forward to it. I know a little about UC Santa Barbara, they have a player from Sweden who used to play for LSU. He’s a good player. They’ve had a good year, so it will definitely be a tough first round.”

On team’s confidence heading into NCAAs…

“We’re battle-tested, because we’ve been through a grueling SEC schedule where every match was a big-time battle. We are well-prepared for the NCAA Tournament having played all these tough matches.”

Junior Grey Hamilton…

“We saw some projections the last few days that had us maybe going to TCU, but we’re excited to go back to California. We all talked about how awesome it would be to go play UCLA or USC. We really enjoyed our trip to California last year. We’re looking to playing UC Santa Barbara and then hopefully UCLA, one of the premier teams over the last 20 years like us.”

On momentum heading into NCAAs…

“We are definitely peaking at the right time. We won five of our last seven SEC matches and then beat Auburn last week in the tournament. Gus is playing the best he has all season, he had two great wins in our last weekend here against Vanderbilt and Kentucky. We’re playing good doubles and everybody is peaking at the right time. We have a good chance if we play well to advance.”

For more information on Ole Miss Men’s Tennis, follow the Rebels on Twitter @OleMissMTennis, on Facebook at OleMissMTennis and on Instagram at OleMissMTennis, follow Coach Hansson on Twitter at @TennisToby.

Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports