April 22, 2012

Box Score

OXFORD, Miss. – After taking the first two games of the weekend series, the Rebels missed out on the sweep as No. 22 Ole Miss (27-13, 9-9 SEC) fell to No. 15 Arkansas (28-12, 9-9 SEC) by a score of 11-3 on Sunday in the series finale.

The series win, however, jumped the Rebels up into second place in the Southeastern Conference Western Division and put the team two games behind No. 1 LSU in the divisional race after the weekend.

Ole Miss won the first two games of the weekend 8-2 and 1-0 before the Sunday loss.

Sam Smith (2-3) suffered the loss in the finale, allowing five runs on six hits in 1.0 inning of work.

Cade Lynch (2-1) picked up the win in relief, working 3.0 innings and allowed one run on three hits with  walk and four strikeouts. He came on to relieve the starter, D.J. Baxendale, who worked 3.2 innings and allowed one run on six hits with two walks and four strikeouts.

“It was a tough day for us and a good day for them,” said Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco. “We swung it all right, but we didn’t get that key base hit to score a lot of runs to get back into the game. They swung it well throughout the game.

“It was a tough day to pitch,” Bianco said. “Sometimes that is just baseball and it was just one of those days. It’s hard to understand, but that’s baseball. Arkansas got two hits yesterday afternoon and got 18 today and seemed so locked in. They were very impressive at the plate.”

Arkansas got off to the quick start on Sunday, pushing home four runs in the first inning and three runs in the second inning to take the seven-run lead on the Rebels out of the gates.

Ole Miss got on the board in the third inning when Austin Anderson scored on a Matt Snyder single to left center. Anderson opened the inning with a walk and moved to third in a single from Yarbrough to set up the score on the Snyder hit that made it 7-1.

Arkansas got a run back in the fourth inning with a sac fly from Dominic Ficociello to extend the lead back to seven runs. The Razorbacks would build on the lead from there, adding a single run in the sixth and two more in the seventh before Ole Miss would score again.

The Rebels plated a second run in the bottom of the seventh when Tanner Mathis came home on a double play ball to third from Snyder with the bases loaded. Mathis walked to open the inning before back-to-back singles from Blake Newalu and Yarbrough loaded the bases.

Arkansas would get out of the inning with no further damage, posting a strikeout following the Snyder ground ball still up 11-2.

Ole Miss plated its final run of the day in the ninth when Snyder came home on a single from Sikes Orvis to put the score at 11-3.

The Rebels will return to action on Tuesday with the first of five straight road games as Ole Miss takes on Memphis at AutoZone Park. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.