OXFORD – Florida struggled to keep Ole Miss off the basepaths Thursday night, and that proved to be enough for the Rebels.
Ole Miss racked up eight hits and 13 walks and held on for a 7-5 win over the Gators. The two teams will settle the series with a doubleheader on Friday starting at 3 p.m.
Ole Miss left 14 runners on base, but the Rebels pieced together enough runs to win anyway.
“I don’t know how you only score seven runs,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “It’s really hard to do that. It’s one of those frustrating (things) where we set it up, we had opportunities, we just didn’t get the big hit to clear the bases. Fortunately, it didn’t come back to get us.”
The Rebels (20-5, 5-2 SEC) opened the scoring in the top of the first. Isaac Humphrey smacked a single through the infield to drive in a run, and Hayden Federico drew a bases-loaded walk to bring in a second.
The Ole Miss lead didn’t last long, however. The Gators (18-10, 0-7) put a pair on base in the top of the third, and Ashton Wilson drove them all home with a three-run home run to left center to give Florida a 3-2 lead. Will Furniss tied it back up with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the frame.
Furniss did even more damage in the bottom of the fifth. Ole Miss drew back-to-back walks, and Furniss cleared the bases with a two-RBI double down the right-field line.
“He threw a fastball first pitch and really spiked the heck out of it, so I was like, ‘You know, they’re probably not going to throw that again, they don’t want to walk me right here … they don’t want to make the bases loaded,’” Furniss said. “So, I sat slider, got one middle-in and thank goodness it landed fair. I thought it was going to go foul there for a second.”
The Rebels added a third run in the frame, and then Furniss hit another sacrifice fly in the sixth to make it 7-3. Furniss had a team-high four RBIs on a night where Ole Miss struggled to turn baserunners into runs.
“Could’ve easily been the MVP of the game, and I thought played really well at first base as well,” Bianco said.
Ole Miss starter Hunter Elliott gave up six hits in 5 2/3 innings, but they only turned into three earned runs. Elliott also struck out seven batters while dishing out zero free passes to improve to 5-0 on the season.
“I didn’t have my best stuff, but I thought I competed really well,” Elliott said. “I thought I made the big pitches when it really mattered to get off the field and get us into the dugout. I think I just had one kind of relapse in focus a little bit there in the third and got right back to it and fought really hard tonight.”
He turned it over to Mason Morris, who finished out the sixth but ran into trouble in the seventh. Florida loaded the bases before Bobby Boser drove in a pair of runs with a single to cut the lead in half.
But that was all Florida could muster. Morris kept Florida off the board in the eighth, and Brayden Jones slammed the door shut in the ninth with a couple of strikeouts to pick up his first save of the season.
“With (Connor Spencer) not available, I thought (Jones) was absolutely dominant,” Bianco said. “The board, just FYI, and the gun doesn’t average up. And so, my guess is one or two of those pitches were 100 miles an hour on Trackman, so it was really good stuff by him. Super strike thrower with two really good pitches.”
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