Ole Miss Host No. 5 Arkansas at Swayze

By Adam Brown
Sports Editor
adam.brown@hottytoddy.com

Ole Miss baseball returns to the diamond on Thursday to start an SEC showdown against the No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks. The first pitch of the three-game series is set for 6:30 p.m. and can be streamed on SEC Network+.

Ole Miss (17-11, 1-8) is coming off of a 7-2 victory over the Memphis Tigers on Tuesday night. The Rebels picked up there first conference win on Saturday against the Texas A&M Aggies 14-7.

In the win over Memphis, coach Mike Bianco became the second-winningest SEC head coach of all time with 871^st win and passed Skip Bertman.

This season, the Rebels offense has scored 17 runs with two outs over their last four games and are hitting .312 as a team with two outs.

Ole Miss’ center fielder Ethan Groff is ranked eighth in the SEC in stolen bases with 11. He has only been caught stealing once in 12 tries.

Arkansas (23-5, 6-3 SEC) rolls into Oxford on a two-game winning streak after taking the back-end of the series against Alabama.

The Razorbacks are led at the dish by Jace Bohrofen with a .405 average. His teammate Jared Wegner leads the club with 12 home runs and 43 RBIs.

This season, Arkansas has hit 48 home runs.

The pitching matchup for this weekend’s series will showcase the arm of left-hander Hunter Hollan for the Razorbacks on Thursday. Arkansas has not released the names of the starters for Friday and Saturday. Bianco will send to the mound RHP Jack Dougherty (Thursday), LHP Xavier Rivas (Friday) and RHP JT Quinn (Saturday).

Ole Miss and Arkansas matched up six times last year, including three times in the College World Series. The Rebels won two out of three games against Arkansas at the CWS including a 2-0 win to reach the CWS Finals. Dylan DeLucia pitched a nine-inning complete game, striking out seven and allowing just four hits.

Game times for this series are Thursday (6:30 p.m. SEC Network+), Friday (6:30 p.m. SEC Network+) and Saturday (2 p.m. SEC Network).