Alabama takes series from Rebels
Published 1:49 am Monday, April 18, 2016
Ole Miss’ Southeastern Conference success turned out to be short-lived.
Chandler Avant and Chance Vincent each delivered two-run doubles in the fifth inning, and Alabama scored six times in the frame to beat Ole Miss 7-2 on Sunday.
Alabama (22-14, 8-7 Southeastern Conference) won two out of three games in the series. After sweeping Arkansas last weekend, Ole Miss (26-10, 7-8) lost its third series in its last four.
Alabama won its first SEC series in its last three weekends, and has won four of its last five games overall.
“I thought the team did a really nice job responding after getting beat on Friday night,” Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard said. “We really had to grind the one out (Saturday). Cobie (Vance) got the big hit and we found a way to get a couple runs in this game. Today you could feel it. I think our team just had a little better vibe to it. You could feel that they had more confidence.”
Tate Blackman had two hits for Ole Miss, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Henri Lartigue to tie the game at 1 in the top of the fifth inning. Alabama, though, responded in a big way in the bottom half of the inning.
Avant’s double capped a run of three consecutive one-out hits and plated two runs to give the Crimson Tide a 3-1 lead. A walk and an RBI double by Cody Henry followed, and then Vincent delivered his two-run double to make it 6-1.
Connor Short capped the six-run inning with an RBI single.
Ole Miss had runners on in the sixth and seventh innings, but neither got past second base. It tacked on a run in the ninth on a two-out RBI double by Ryan Olenek.
Olenek finished 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Rebels. Avant and Short had two hits apiece for Alabama, and Cobie Vance was 3-for-5 with a run scored.
Southern Miss 11, UAB 0
Chase Scott hit a three-run home run in the first inning, Michael Gilbert hit a grand slam in the third, and Southern Miss (27-10, 12-3 Conference USA) salvaged its series finale with UAB (14-22, 6-9) with a seven-inning run-rule victory.
UAB won on Friday and Saturday to hand Southern Miss its first conference series loss of the season. The Golden Eagles, though, wasted no time taking out some frustration on Sunday.
The two early home runs gave them a 7-0 lead, and they had at least one baserunner in every inning. They left the bases loaded three times and scored their 11 runs on nine hits and seven walks.
Jake Sandlin doubled twice and scored twice for Southern Miss, and Nick Dawson went 2-for-4 with a double, RBI and a run scored.
Kirk McCarty (3-0) pitched all seven innings for Southern Miss. He struck out seven, walked three and allowed three hits.
LSU 15, Missouri 2
Jordan Romero, Greg Deichmann and Bryce Jordan all homered, and LSU (25-11, 9-6 SEC) routed Missouri (20-18, 4-11) to finish a three-game sweep.
Romero went 4-for-6 with four RBIs and two runs scored, and Jordan also drove in four runs. Jake Fraley and Antoine Duplantis had three hits apiece for LSU, which had five players who scored at least two runs apiece.
The top three hitters in LSU’s order — Duplanits, Fraley and Romero — were a combined 10-for-16 with six RBIs and five runs scored. Deichmann, the cleanup hitter, was only 1-for-4 but drove in two runs and scored three times.