Right Field Review: Raleigh Regional

SAT: Ole Miss 8, Binghampton 4

It was somewhat of inverse of their loss to William & Mary for the Rebels on Saturday, as mistakes by Binghampton led to a four-run inning in the eighth that proved to be the difference in the game. Back-to-back singles by Andrew Mistone (2-for-5, 1 R, 1 RBI) and Preston Overbey (2-for-5, 1 R) started the inning, and an intentional walk and a sac-bunt set the table for a run-scoring sac-fly. Then things fell apart for Binghampton, as they walked two and committed an error to make the score 8-2.

After jumping the Rebels jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first, but Binghampton (I'm going to keep referring to them by their school name, 'cause even after watching that entire game I couldn't tell you what their mascot is) scratched back to tie with runs in the third and sixth. The Ole Miss offense did a great job responding, immediately putting up a two-spot in the seventh on the back of RBI-singles from Tanner Mathis (2-for-4, 3 R, 1 RBI) and Austin Anderson (4-for-5, 1 R, 1 RBI).

It wasn't Bobby Wahl's best outing, but he made it work. He gave up a good bit of contact (he was somewhat lucky to give up only eight hits) and only struck out two, but only allowed two runs through a workman-like 7 IP.

Ole Miss now turns it's attention to the N.C. State-William & Mary game at 6 p.m. Saturday. They'll take on the loser of that matchup tomorrow.

FRI: William & Mary 4, Ole Miss 2

Well that wasn't supposed to happen.

The Rebels were upset by a team who before today had never won an NCAA Tournament game (so at least we're a part of history, right?). We'll start with the offense, who probably wouldn't have mustered many more runs if they had been facing Will & Grace. They managed a respectable enough nine hits, but, per usual, couldn't make the big swing when it counted. Between the fourth, fifth and ninth innings Ole Miss left six runners on the base paths. In both the sixth and seventh, we had runners at second and third with no outs, and while sac plays scored one run in each situation, a base hit could could have changed the game completely.

Defensively, Mike Mayers was a stud through four innings. Then the fifth inning happened. Mayers hit the wall out of nowhere, and all of a sudden couldn't keep the ball down in the zone to save his life. Four walks and two errors later Will & Mary had scored four runs off zero hits.

The good news? This is, of course, a double elilmination tournament, and we'll have Bobby Wahl on the bump tomorrow for the elimination. Also, Aaron Greenwood was surprisingly efficient in relief and saved us from getting too far into our bullpen.

The bad news? We'll now have to win four straight to make it out of the regional, and two of those wins will probably have to be over one-seeded NC State. So that sucks.