Ole Miss baseball dominates Georgia in 4-0 win at SEC Tournament

Drew McDaniel had his best start of the year in a game where Ole Miss picked up its 40th win of the season in a 4-0 victory over the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Tournament.

The Rebels won the elimination game behind a solo home run by Kevin Graham and three runs that came by other means, sending the Bulldogs home who now await their fate as far as the NCAA tournament is concerned. Ole Miss advances and will face the loser of tonight’s game between Vanderbilt and Arkansas tomorrow.

Drew McDaniel went 6.2 innings on the hill, striking out a career-high 11 batters faced in the contest. Regardless of how Ole Miss finishes this week in Hoover, if you’re a Rebel fan, you have to be encouraged by what you’ve seen the last two days from Derek Diamond and Drew McDaniel against SEC competition. Both Diamond and McDaniel will be needed in postseason play, and them building some confidence in the SEC Tournament could be very important moving forward in the next week-plus.

Regardless of who Ole Miss plays tomorrow, it will throw Tyler Myers as its starter. We’ve reached the point of the SEC Tournament where non-starters are thrust into that role on the hill, and the Rebels will likely take it day-by-day for the remainder of the tournament should they advance past tomorrow.

A win over Georgia today is important if Ole Miss wants to find a way to backend itself into a top-eight national seed come next week and be in line to host a super regional. Even if they don’t manage to do that, they need to win as many games this week as possible to get an easier draw for a super should they get past the regional round.

We’ll see you tomorrow for more Ole Miss baseball action from the Hoover Met against either Arkansas or Vandy. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.