Ole Miss Baseball: Rebels fall in rankings after getting swept by Vanderbilt

Ole Miss baseball takes a hit in the latest college baseball rankings after going winless in a three-game series against 6th-ranked Vanderbilt.

The Ole Miss baseball squad was off to a hot start in the 2023 season through their first 16 games. The defending champs were sitting at 14-2 and ranked fourth in the country with wins over teams like Maryland, Southern Miss, and Nebraska just to name a few.

A week ago the Rebels dropped a game against Jacksonville State and from that point on they wouldn’t recover going winless in a three-game series against a very tough Vanderbilt opponent and going 0-4 since March 14.

The loss to Jacksonville State seemed to be a flash in the pan, just another mid-season game the Rebels didn’t take seriously as they anticipated the clash with 6-ranked Vandy, but instead the weaknesses that Ole Miss has would be exposed, and the high-powered offense that they’ve shown all year was nowhere to be found.

Vanderbilt would outscore Ole Miss by a 23-run margin over the course of the series, scoring  27 total runs to Ole Miss’ four. On Thursday the score was 6-2 with the Commodores on top entering the bottom of the eighth inning when they would go on to score six more runs to run the score up to 12-2.

On Friday Ole Miss baseball would be shut out for the first time this year, losing by a score of 8-0. The Rebels would be held to just two hits all game and they were struck out 11 times.

Saturday would prove to be just as difficult for the Rebs as Vanderbilt would complete the sweep winning by a score of 7-2. The Rebels fall to 14-6 overall on the year and are 0-3 in conference play, while Vandy moves to 16-5 and 3-0.

With the sweep, Ole Miss fell to 13th overall in the D1baseball.com rankings. The Rebels will try and bounce back in a get-right game tonight when they host Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 6:30 p.m. CST.