The 2026 Lincoln Regional is in the rearview mirror for Ole Miss, and the Rebels are still standing.
Dom Decker’s walk-off sacrifice fly in the 10th inning lifted Ole Miss past Arizona State, 5-4, in the regional final Sunday, sending Mike Bianco’s team to the Super Regionals for the first time since 2022.
It’s the kind of win that doesn’t just count in the win column. It counts for something bigger.
Ole Miss became the first non-national seed to reach the Super Regional round in the 2026 tournament, a footnote that’ll look nice in the record books.
Now it means far more to a team that spent the past year replaying what went wrong in May 2025.
The ghost of Murray State gets buried
If you follow Ole Miss baseball, you know the wound.
Last spring, the Rebels were hosting a regional at Swayze Field with a chance to advance but fell to Murray State 12-11 in the regional final, nearly completing a stunning comeback from a nine-run deficit before the Racers held on.
It ended a 43-win season on the cruelest possible note, on their own field, in front of their own fans.
The Rebels had more wins than all but one season in recent memory, and it still wasn’t enough to get out of Oxford.
That 2025 Ole Miss team finished 43-21 overall, the most wins since the Rebels’ 2022 national championship run, but the résumé didn’t matter when Murray State’s last run crossed home plate.
Bianco didn’t blow things up. He didn’t overreact.
That patience, that willingness to trust the process and the people already in the program, is exactly what’s paid dividends in Nebraska.
The roster that walked off Swayze Field in defeat last May came back, got better and just ground through a brutal regional field without flinching.
Two games, two extra-inning wars
Ole Miss and Arizona State played twice in Lincoln, and neither game was remotely easy.
Their first meeting on Friday went 14 innings, with the Rebs outlasting the Sun Devils 7-6 in a game that featured Judd Utermark and Tristan Bissetta each going deep and Hayden Federico delivering a career-high four hits.
The turning point came when Will Furniss doubled off the wall to drive in two runs in the third and Bissetta followed with a two-run home run to put Ole Miss up 5-3.
Brayden Randle ultimately ended it with a walk-off single in the bottom of the 14th with the bases loaded, going 2-for-4 in the contest.
Then came the Nebraska game, which started Saturday and had to be finished Sunday due to weather.
Starter Taylor Rabe was the standout, going six innings while allowing one run on four hits with nine strikeouts, and shortstop Owen Paino delivered a two-run double in the sixth to give the Rebels the lead for good in a 6-3 win.
Between those two victories, Ole Miss had already done enough to force Arizona State into must-win mode for the Regional final.
The Sun Devils obliged, taking care of Nebraska to set up a rubber match.
Decker delivers when it counts
The regional final was another grind. Neither team held a lead of more than one run for more than an inning throughout the game.
It took until the 10th before Ole Miss broke through. The Rebs got runners on first and third with one out before Decker ended it with a sacrifice fly to left.
What makes Decker’s moment particularly worth noting is the arc of his story.
As a sophomore in 2025, he helped lead Murray State — yes, the same Murray State — to their first-ever Super Regional appearance.
He transferred to Ole Miss, and now he’s the guy delivering the walk-off that sends the Rebels to the next round. College baseball doesn’t write better storylines than that.
The pitching staff throughout the regional was strong across the board.
In the first Arizona State game, Hunter Elliott worked five innings before Walker Hooks came on for 5.1 innings and Hudson Calhoun closed it out with 3.2 innings of work.
The Oxford question and what comes next
Here’s where things get interesting for Rebel fans.
Ole Miss is set to face the winner of the Auburn Regional in the Super Regionals, and Auburn still has its regional final against Milwaukee to play Monday night.
If Auburn wins their Regional, they’d host the Super Regional at Plainsman Park in Auburn, Alabama. That’s what Oxford fans are watching for Monday night.
The Rebels know where they’re headed, they just don’t know whether they’ll be packing bags for a road trip or staying home.
Ole Miss got knocked out of last year’s Super Regional path before they even got the chance to play one. Prior to that, the Rebs hadn’t hosted a Regional at Swayze Field since 2021.
Swayze roaring for a Super Regional would be something to hear.
But the Super Regional site can wait.
What can’t wait is this Ole Miss team just put together one of the grittier regional runs of the 2026 tournament field, beating a ranked Arizona State team twice in extra innings, handling a host Nebraska squad and doing it all away from home.
Bianco kept the faith after last May. The players kept the faith, too.
Now they’re in the Super Regionals, and Oxford will find out Monday whether it gets to be part of what comes next.
