With the threat of bad weather on Saturday, the Ole Miss Rebels would welcome the Purple Aces of Evansville to Swayze Field on Friday for an afternoon of baseball as the two would play a doubleheader to try and get most of the series in before the weather on Saturday and possibly on Sunday. A nearly perfect Friday afternoon would be on tap for these two for a highly anticipated doubleheader. 

Ole Miss would come into the series with Evansville looking to carry the mometum from the midweeks to a massive Tuesday night tilt with Southern Miss by winning another series over a pesky Evansville team. 

Ole Miss and Evansville would be rolling with their normal Friday starters in game one of the doubleheader, with Hunter Elliott getting the start for the Rebels, while Kenton Dever would go for the Purple Aces. Hunter Elliott would be the first to see his day end after an okay start, where he gave up two earned runs, four hits, four walks, with an impressive seven strikeouts after five complete innings. Like two weeks ago, Elliott wasn’t perfect on Friday, but he got the job done, and the offense provided a buffer for relief pitcher Hudson Calhoun to work with. Almost as if watching the same story as two weeks ago, when Elliott didn’t have his best night, but Calhoun and the offense did what they had to do to get the job done for the Rebels. For Evansville, similar to Hunter Elliott for Ole Miss, Kenton Dever wasn’t perfect, but he allowed the Purple Aces to remain in contention on Friday afternoon. Dever finished his day after 5.1 innings, giving up four earned runs, 12 hits, and only three strikeouts. What helped Dever on Friday was his defense playing the fundamentals and getting out of innings when the Rebels were in scoring position. Something to monitor as the season progresses into the postseason is the possibility that Coach Bianco and his staff could turn to Hudson Calhoun in a dire situation for another starter. Unlikely, but if there’s someone outside the normal rotation, then Hudson Calhoun would likely be that guy for the Rebels. 

Evansville would jump out to an early 2-0 lead over the Rebels thanks to back-to-back home runs in the top of the 2nd off the bats of Reid Haire and Ximi Baftiri. Ole Miss would tie it at two in the bottom half of the third, before Tate Sirmans took the lead in the bottom of the 4th with a solo shot to make it 3-2 Rebels. From there, Judd Utermark would add a solo shot to the board with a shot to left center to extend the Rebels’ lead to 4-2 at the end of the 5th inning. Ole Miss would add three insurance runs in the bottom of the 8th to extend the Ole Miss lead to 7-2 as they went into finishing off game one of the series in the 9th. 

Despite some hiccups with the starting pitching, Ole Miss did what it had to do and came away with a game one 7-2 victory over Evansville. With a week until SEC play starts, winning is the name of the game as the Rebels look to build off the mometum of this week, while not focusing on what’s to come on Tuesday night as they travel to Pete Taylor Park to take on Southern Miss. This weekend against Evansville gives Ole Miss the perfect tuneup before next week, and with a game one series win, the Rebels had the mometum heading into the nightcap. 

Game two rolled around 45 minutes following the game one final as the Rebels looked to take the series over Evansville. 

On the mound for the Rebels in game two was Cade Townsend, and for Evansville, they would go with Max Hansmann as the starter for game two. Townsend delivered another fantastic performance for the Rebels with five complete innings, one hit, zero runs, while striking out seven. 

Ole Miss would strike first in the bottom of the first inning with a base hit from Collin Reuter that scored Judd Utermark to make it 1-0. Dom Decker would add a solo shot of his own to the left field bullpen to extend the Ole Miss lead to 2-0 in the bottom of the third inning. With one out in the bottom of the 4th, Daniel Pacella would step in and hammer a three-run homerun to left center to extend the Ole Miss lead to 5-0. Adding to the lead would be Judd Utermark with his 10th home run of the season to left field to extend the Ole Miss lead to 8-0 with the three-run shot in the bottom half of the 4th inning. From there, the blowout was on as the Rebels scored five in the 5th and one in the 6th to run-rule Evansville 14-2 in seven innings. 

Ole Miss will go for the sweep on Sunday, but overall, this weekend has been a massive success for the Rebels, as they now turn their focus to Southern Miss on Tuesday night before heading to Austin to take on the Texas Longhorns. 

Photo Credits- Ole Miss baseball on X