STARKVILLE, Miss. – No. 24 Ole Miss baseball split a doubleheader against Mississippi State Friday night, winning the first game 10-4 and losing the second game 4-1.
The series finale has been moved up from Sunday to Saturday and will now start at 7 p.m.Starting pitching was good for the Rebels in both games as Hunter Elliott and Riley Maddox combined for 12 total innings and gave up just four runs while punching out 15 hitters.
Elliott worked 5.2 innings and gave up two earned runs on just three hits while striking out seven batters in game one.
He has now given up just five earned runs and struck out 20 hitters over his last three outings.
Maddox worked 6.1 innings and gave up just two earned runs on four hits while striking out a career-high eight batters. He has matched or set a new career-high in strikeouts in back-to-back outings against the Bulldogs.
Judd Utermark went 3-for-8 on the night with a three-RBI home run in the first game and a double in game two.
Mitchell Sanford went 2-for-6 with three walks and two runs scored, reaching base a combined five times.
Austin Fawley hit his 16th home run of the season in the first inning of game one to put the Rebels up 2-0. He has now hit 10 home runs in his last 16 games.
The Bulldogs tied things up with a solo home run in the first inning and an RBI triple in the fourth.
Ole Miss took the lead on a sacrifice bunt that turned into an error and then followed it up with three home runs. The first was a three-run shot right down the left field line by Utermark that made it 6-2.Collin Reuter hit a solo shot later in the fifth inning and Ryan Moerman followed with a solo shot of his own in the sixth inning.
The Rebels would score two more runs in the eighth inning on an RBI groundout from Luke Cheng and an RBI single from Luke Hill to extend their lead to 10-2.
The Bulldogs put up two runs in the eighth inning, but a hitless 1.1 innings of work from Will McCausland silenced the threat and locked down the win.
The Rebels had seven hits in game two but could not string anything together until the ninth inning. Mississippi State’s Evan Siary worked eight innings and struck out 15 Rebels without issuing a walk. Ole Miss had just two runners reach second base through eight innings.
