Ole Miss pitcher Lilly Whitten winds up against No. 13 Texas A&M in Oxford. | Ole Miss Athletics
Ole Miss pitcher Lilly Whitten winds up against No. 13 Texas A&M in Oxford. | Ole Miss Athletics

Late Offense Encouraging, But Early Deficit Costs Ole Miss vs Texas A&M

BY Taylor Hodges

Ole Miss finally woke up at the plate Friday night. The problem was Texas A&M had already done most of its damage before the Rebels ever settled in.

A 10-6 loss to No. 13 Texas A&M is not the kind of opener Ole Miss wanted, especially at home, and especially after spotting the Aggies a 9-0 lead in the first two innings. Credit to the Rebels for making it interesting late, but the theme of the night was pretty simple. The offense showed up. It just showed up too late.

The first inning was a gut punch. Six Texas A&M runs before Ole Miss even got a chance to breathe. Three more in the second. Suddenly it was 9-0, and the Rebels were staring at a mountain.

To their credit, they started climbing.

Cassie Reasner’s single in the second helped spark the first push, and an error finally got Ole Miss on the board. Taylor Malvin followed with an RBI double to score Laylonna Applin and cut it to 9-2. It was the first sign that the Rebels weren’t going to roll over.

Then came the home runs. Madi George launched her twelfth of the season in the third. Applin added a solo shot in the fourth. The Aggies answered with a sacrifice fly in the fifth, but George came right back with her second homer of the night, a two run blast that made it 10-6 and brought the crowd back into it.

For a moment, it felt like Ole Miss might actually pull off something wild. Malvin kept the pressure on with her third hit of the night in the sixth. The Rebels finished with the same number of hits as Texas A&M.

They had momentum. They had life. They just ran out of time.

That is the part that matters heading into Saturday. The late offense was encouraging. George looked locked in. Malvin kept finding barrels. The lineup showed it can punch back.

But if Ole Miss wants game two to look different, the bats cannot wait until the third inning to get going. They cannot spend the first two frames digging out of a crater.

Texas A&M is too good for that. Most SEC teams are too good for that.

Ole Miss is now 26-16 overall and 2-11 in the league, and Saturday offers a chance to reset the tone of the series.

The Rebels proved they can score on this pitching staff.

Now they need to prove they can do it before the game gets away from them.

Game two is set for 2 p.m. on SECN+.

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