Just like nearly every other sport, some of the nation’s best baseball teams play in the SEC. There are 12 ranked teams and they’ll start to face one another this weekend.
So, it figures every SEC team will want to head into the start of conference play with good feelings and positive momentum. No. 13 Ole Miss won’t be one those teams.
The Rebels (14-2) saw its 13 game win streak come to an end Tuesday night in a 14-5 loss to South Alabama. It’s a somewhat surprising loss considering how the Rebels had played in recent weeks and its ranking in both D1Baseball’s and Baseball America’s top 25 rankings.
But after committing four errors and recording just six hits against South Alabama (9-6), the loss isn’t as surprising.
South Alabama scored at least one run in every inning except the fourth and sixth innings. The Rebels wouldn’t push any runs across home plate until the fifth inning, trailing 6-0. South Alabama responded with three runs in the bottom half of the inning. Ryan Moerman’s solo home run and pair of runs scored as a result of a dropped fly ball made the score 9-5. That would be the last runs scored by the Rebels while the Jaguars put up one in the seventh and four in the eighth to push their lead to nine.
Taylor Rabe suffered the loss as the Rebels’ starting pitcher, allowing four runs (only one of which was earned) on two hits and a walk. Ole Miss would use either more pitchers to complete the game and gave up a combined 12 hits after Rabe was relieved.
History will decide if this a poorly- or perfectly-timed loss, but either way, the Rebels face a big hurdle to overcome this weekend.
Ole Miss will host No. 3 Arkansas at Swayze Field for a three-game series beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday on SECN+.
