Ole Miss baseball went a clean 3-0 this past weekend against the Purdue Boilermakers to improve to 14-2 overall on the year.
The Ole Miss Rebels climbed one spot in the national rankings this week both in the coaches poll and in the D1baseball.com poll after another dominant series performance against Purdue just before they enter conference play against some tough SEC opponents.
Ole Miss baseball is now 8-1 when facing teams in the Big Ten Conference this year and they have outscored the Big Ten teams 88-50 over nine games.
The Rebels kicked off Friday with a bang, their high-powered offense in full effect scoring eight runs in the first two innings before finally winning by a score of 15-7. Kemp Alderman had a record-tying five RBI while Anthony Calarco went 3-for-5 with three RBI and scored two runs.
The Boilermakers would make a charge at a comeback and made it a 9-6 score in the bottom of the sixth when TJ McCants would subsequently hit a home run and make it a 10-6 lead before going on to win by eight total runs.
On Saturday Purdue would put up a fight and force the Rebels into extra innings where Ole Miss would eventually squeak out a victory by a score of 7-6 after Kemp Alderman’s 10th-inning solo home run.
The two offenses would cool off by Sunday and Ole Miss would win the matchup 6-1 to complete the series sweep. Pitcher Xavier Rivas would pitch six innings giving up only one run. Kemp Alderman drew four walks and recorded no official at-bats in the win, after hitting three home runs in the first two games.
Rebels drop game to Jacksonville State making them 14-3 ahead of showdown against Vanderbilt.
After the weekend sweep of Purdue, the Rebels dropped just their third game of the year to Jacksonville State last night by a score of 10-6.
Right-hander Jordan Vera got the start on the mound for Ole Miss. The Rebels begin SEC play this Thursday against number six overall ranked Vanderbilt in a three-game series running Thursday through Saturday. The Commodores enter the series at 13-5 overall on the year.