HOOVER, Ala. (AP) — Ole Miss muscled its way past Auburn and into the Southeastern Conference Tournament semifinals.

Jacob Adams, Thomas Dillard and Chase Cockrell all homered to lead Ole Miss to a 7-0 victory in an elimination game Friday night.

The Rebels (44-15) will face Texas A&M Saturday at noon for a berth in the championship game. Arkansas will play either Florida or LSU in the other semifinal at 4 p.m.

Ole Miss beat Auburn (39-21) four out of five times this season and avenged a loss earlier in the SEC Tournament. The Rebels are in the semifinals for the second time in three seasons but have not been to the championship game since 2008. They haven’t won the tournament since 2006.

“A couple of days ago we lost to them and they beat up our bullpen pretty bad. They’re a team that’s fighting to maybe host a regional themselves with a great RPI. I was proud of the way we responded today,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said.

James McArthur (6-0), Max Cioffi and Austin Miller combined on the five-hit shutout.
McArthur had six strikeouts and made it into the sixth, then Cioffi went three hitless innings before running into some trouble in the ninth. Miller struck out the final two batters.

Nick Fortes and Cole Zabowski each had two hits and an RBI for the Rebels, but it was the power from throughout the lineup that propelled them to victory.

The cleanup hitter Dillard hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning to give the Rebels a 2-0 lead. No. 8 hitter Jacob Adams went deep in the seventh inning and No. 9 hitter Chase Cockrell homered in the ninth as the Rebels steadily added to the lead.

Ole Miss batters struck out 14 times, but six different players had RBIs. Dillard also walked twice, drove in two runs and scored two.

“One of the reasons that our offense is so good is that it’s throughout the lineup,” Bianco said. “So when you look at the lineup today, three, four and five all have RBIs but so do seven, eight and nine,” Bianco said.

Auburn won its first two games in the SEC Tournament to enter the conversation for a top-eight national seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers then scored a total of two runs in back-to-back losses to Texas A&M and Ole Miss and likely saw those hopes evaporate.

Although it entered the day ranked No. 12 in RPI and is a lock to make the NCAA Tournament, Auburn is 4-7 in its last 11 games.