#18 Ole Miss Upset By North Alabama

OXFORD, Miss. (Ole Miss Athletics) – Ole Miss simply couldn’t find a pitcher to quiet the bats of the North Alabama Lions, who escaped Swayze Field with a 10-6 victory after five runs over the final four frames. The Rebels used seven pitchers today, with no relief pitcher extending beyond 1.1 innings out of the bullpen after Max Cioffi’s first career start came to a close in the fourth.

Ole Miss kept it close through the first four innings, going into the fifth trailing by one to the Lions, but were unable to match the runs put up in the top half of innings as the game wore on. Freshman Kevin Graham made the game’s final inning a little dramatic with a late two-run homer, his fourth of the year, but it simply wasn’t enough as the Rebels had already dug themselves in a hole.

The sophomore Cioffi capped his first start in an Ole Miss uniform with 3.2 innings pitched, five runs but only two of them earned, and four strikeouts. Connor Green fared well as the first arm out of the bullpen, taking the game to the sixth inning with the Rebels trailing closely, 5-4. Green also had two strikeouts in his 1.1 innings of work, before Houston Roth started the sixth inning.

Roth, Taylor Broadway, Austin Miller, Zack Phillips, and Ryan Olenek were all used to pitch the final four innings. Two runs were credited to Roth, another two to Broadway, and one more to Miller as the Lions plated two in the sixth and three in the eighth before Olenek shut it down in the ninth.

Tyler Keenan and Jacob Adams were the only Rebels with multiple hits on the day, each with a pair, as part of Ole Miss’ 10-hit day at the plate. Cole Zabowski and Cooper Johnson both had a double, with the former driving in a run on an RBI and the latter coming around to score a batter later. Thomas Dillard also recorded a stolen base for his 12th of the year and is still yet to be caught on the base path (12-12).

North Alabama got out to a quick start with a pair of runs in the second inning, after three consecutive two-out singles following two Cioffi strikeouts to start the frame. The Rebels answered with two of their own an inning later, after singles by Kessinger and Dillard and an RBI double by Zabowski.

The Lions pulled ahead in the fourth inning, however, and wouldn’t relinquish their lead for the remainder of the ballgame. Cioffi’s last batter, Harris Kain, doubled to left and brought in two unearned runs after a Keenan error extended the inning. The Rebel starter would be credited for one more run after an RBI single following Green’s entrance on the mound.

Keenan and Dillard added two more in the bottom of the fourth to make it a 5-4 ballgame, but the Lions would put it away with five runs scored over the final four innings. They added two in the sixth, and another three in the eighth for a total of 10 runs on 14 hits.

Cooper Johnson doubled in the bottom of the ninth and scored on Graham’s home run to get the Kids Day crowd excited, but it was simply too little, too late as the Rebels fell to the Lions by a score of 10-6.

Ole Miss will be back in action this Friday against Florida for the first home series after a two-week road stretch, with an opening night first pitch of 6:30 p.m. CT.