16 hours ago
SEC Network
OMAHA, Neb. – Ole Miss excelled in swinging in a 10-3 win in game 1 over Oklahoma in the World University Men’s Championship series.
By the time the game was over, the Rebels had 16 hits in the game with four home runs, including consecutive tit-for-tat to take the game out of hand in the eighth inning. Tim Elko took the lead with four shots overall and one of the home runs, while the trio of TJ McCants, Calvin Harris and Justin Bench could hardly combine to beat three consecutive hosts to take the game away. into the 1/8 round.
But it wasn’t just the offense that gave the rebels a 1-0 lead in the best of series.
Jack Dougherty – Rebel pitcher starter and nerfs Mason Nichols and Josh Mallitz – took full command of the mound and kept a strong Oklahoma offensive most of the night.
Ole Miss wasted no time on anything to get on the board, rallying with two leads in the first inning.
Elko started the rally with a single. He finished second on a wild pitch and scored when his teammate and roommate Kevin Graham headed the opposite end of the field to the left side of the field. Graham then took second, finishing third on a wild pitch, and scored when Oklahoma’s Peyton Graham couldn’t handle a hard ball hitting the ground by Rebels’ Kemp Alderman. Mistakes that led to the third foul of the whole season for short fouls are often certain and give Ole Miss a 2-0 lead.
The rebels also scored in each of the next two innings.
In the second game, Calvin Harris hit singles and finished second on another wild pitch before Justin Bench scored to make it 3-0. And in the third inning, Elko hit a laser shot just off the right wall in the corner in his 24th home game of the season and his second in the MCWS, extending Ole’s lead. Miss up to 4-0.
Meanwhile, Ole Miss pitcher Dougherty is tackling. He faces the minimum number of Oklahoma beats in the first five innings, knocking 15 in a row while beating six, including five in a row at a time.
Dougherty, who hasn’t started competing since March, thus became the first pitcher to make a perfect match in the sixth inning of an MCWS game since the NCAA Open Field Tournament his team to 64 in 1999.
Dougherty didn’t give up a hit until Jackson Nicklaus tore a single to usher in season six’s final slot for Oklahoma. That quickly became the start of another glorious time for Dougherty on the mound, as the Nicklaus hit was followed by another single top-line by Sebastian Orduno and a single by Kendall Harris along with a Throwing errors in the play allowed Nicklaus to score. When Dougherty followed then walked to Oklahoma lead John Spikerman, Ole Miss’s start-up night was suddenly over.
With the bases still loaded and still no one out, painkiller Nichols, an Ole Miss freshman, beat Oklahoma’s best player in Graham and number 3 player Blake Robertson Before walking away to clean up assassin Tanner Treadway, forced a second run for the Sooners. Nichols then engaged Oklahoma’s Jimmy Crooks to hit a weak orb right back to him, ending the threat with the Rebels still leading 4-2.
Nichols excelled in his two innings, walking just one but beating the other six beaters he faced, five by strikes.
The Rebels were far from over with their assault fireworks, saving their most explosive hits for the top of the eighth inning, as McCants, Harris and Bench added consecutive home runs to extend the lead to 8-2. McCants, who didn’t start the game, hit a two-series explosion that was preceded by Harris and Bench back-and-forth solos.
McCants, Harris and Bench became the first trio to hit the hosts head-to-head in an MCWS game since LSU’s Brad Kresse, Clint Earnhart and Wes Davis completed it against Mississippi State in 1998.
Ole Miss followed four eighth laps with a ninth lap eventually completing the scoring.
Peyton Chatagnier added three hits for Ole Miss while Bench, Alderman and Harris each had two.
Dougherty took the win on the mound, dropping just two runs earning three hits in his more than five innings of work. Josh Mallitz finished the match, throwing the final two innings while surrendering one turn.
Ole Miss’s 16 hits total is the most in a College World Series final since 2008.
Meanwhile, the four hits registered by Elko only match the Oklahoma-managed team’s total in the first eight innings. Sooners ends with five.
Next
The two teams rematch at 3 p.m. ET Sunday in Game 2 of the series on ESPN. If the rebels win, they are national champions. If the Sooners win, Decisive Game 3 will take place at 7 p.m. ET Monday.
