No. 4 Ole Miss Downs No. 12 Southern Miss 11-3

Thomas Dillard. Photo by Steven Gagliano

The No. 4 Ole Miss diamond Rebel offense came to life early with a six-run second inning to secure the win against Southern Miss 11-3 at Trustmark Park.

Ole Miss (28-6) got back-to-back singles from Cole Zabowski and Will Golsan to open the second inning, and Tyler Keenan singled to right to bring Zabowski home. Junior Chase Cockrell followed with his fourth home run of the season, hit over the left field wall to push the Rebel lead to 4-0.
Sophomore left fielder Thomas Dillard plated the last two runs of the frame with a single to push the lead to 6-0.
Sophomore starter Houston Roth struck out seven batters in five innings of work to pick up his fifth win of the season.
In the fourth, the Rebels scored Nick Fortes from first on a hit to center field off the bat of Dillard. Fortes came in to score on a casual throw from center to second base.
Southern Miss trimmed the deficit down in the fifth as they scored their only three runs of the evening.
The Rebels then added another run in the eighth and three more in the ninth.
Keenan, the two-time reigning SEC Freshman of the Week, finished with three of Ole Miss’ 14 hits, including an RBI and two runs scored. Dillard, Zabowski and Cockrell all finished with two hits to lead the Rebels.
Ole Miss steps back into conference action on Friday as they travel to Music City to take on the Vanderbilt Commodores for a three-game series tilt. Sunday’s game will be aired on ESPNU.

Adam Brown is the sports editor of HottyToddy.com. He can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.