OXFORD — Ole Miss came up a run short of a comeback for the ages. Now, they’ll have all offseason to wonder what might have been.

The Rebels chopped a nine-run deficit to one before running out of steam, and were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament with a 12-11 loss to Murray State in the championship game of the Oxford Regional on Monday.

Murray State (42-14) beat No. 10 national seed Ole Miss (43-21) twice in three meetings in the regional, including Monday’s championship game. The Racers advanced to the super regional round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. They’ll play at Duke in a best-of-three series beginning Friday or Saturday.

Murray State’s win over Ole Miss in the opening game of the regional was the program’s first in the NCAA Tournament since 1979.

Monday’s game followed a familiar pattern of high-scoring games in the Oxford Regional. The winning team scored at least eight runs in all seven games, and reached double figures in each of the last four.

Murray State got to 10 first this time with a relentless barrage of hits of every sort. The Racers amassed 19 hits total including four doubles and a triple. Luke Mistone and Will Vierling had four hits each, while Carson Garner and Dom Decker had three apiece.

RBI singles by Decker and Vierling, and an RBI double by Mistone put Murray State ahead 5-1 in the third inning. It scored four more runs in the fifth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh to go up 12-3.

Ole Miss stopped the bleeding at that point, however, and started its comeback. Back-to-back bases loaded walks and RBI singles by Luke Hill and Will Furniss cut it 12-8 in the bottom of the seventh inning. Brayden Randle hit a three-run home run — his first of the season —in the eighth to pull the Rebels to within one run.

And then, after two more hits, the Rebels ran out of gas. Murray State reliever Graham Kelham struck out the next two batters to end the eighth inning, as well as the first two in the ninth. Ole Miss’ last hope, Hayden Federico, flied out to deep center to end the game.

Kelham finished with six strikeouts in 2 2/3 innings out of the bullpen.