Ole Miss and Auburn face off once again, but both are vastly different now
OMAHA, Neb. — The College World Series is getting a heavy dose of the Southeastern Conference this year with half the field coming from not just the league, but from the same division.
The SEC West is well represented with Ole Miss, Auburn, Arkansas and Texas A&M making up 50 percent of the Omaha 8. Texas A&M got their College World Series started on Friday, losing 13-8 to Oklahoma in the first game of the tournament.
Ole Miss, Arkansas and Auburn get started on Saturday with the Rebels and Tigers squaring off in the nightcap at 6 p.m. CT (ESPN2). Arkansas plays No. 2 National Seed Stanford in the first game of the day at 1 p.m. CT. (ESPN).
Saturday’s meeting is not the first time Ole Miss (37-22) and Auburn (42-20) will meet on the diamond this season. Being division rivals the pair of teams have already played three games against one another. The opening series of the SEC schedule (March 17-19) saw the Rebels take two out of three at Auburn.
Since that weekend things went completely different for both teams. Ole Miss then returned home and were swept by Tennessee then took two out of three at Kentucky the following week. But then the April swoon started with the Rebels dropping four straight SEC series to Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Arkansas.
Auburn bounced back by winning four of their next six SEC series and jumped up the standings of the SEC West and the polls.
Jump to this weekend and the Rebels are one of the hottest teams remaining in the field with a perfect 5-0 postseason record.
Pitching is settled in, the offense is clicking and this is not the same team that scuffled its feet after playing Auburn three months ago.
“You get to this point and you are who you are,” said head coach Mike Bianco. “The question about playing the conference opponents, you’re familiar with them. I think there’s an ease of trying to look at scouting reports because not only are you watching video but you’ve played and you’ve seen a lot of that live.
“There’s a little bit of being comfortable with that, but at the end of the day, like I said, we played Auburn some, maybe 10 weeks ago. And they’re different. And we’re different. And we’ve kind of been to hell and back so we’re obviously different.”
One part of Sunday’s game that will be different is who Ole Miss will see on the mound.
Sophomore right-hander Joseph Gonzalez is getting the start for the Tigers. This will be the first time the Rebels have faced Gonzalez due to him being out with an injury when the two met in March.
The team does not have any live game experience against Gonzalez but Bianco is aware of how good the Tiger pitcher is. Bianco watched him throughout the season as part of the scouting for the USA Collegiate National team preparations.
“We’re fortunate, maybe, that (Gonzalez) was injured,” Bianco said. “When we played him we didn’t get to face him. But I’ve seen him as the head coach for the U.S.A. National Team. Watched him all year as a guy that was high on our list, and a guy that will be with us this summer.
“So I know how good he is and watched him probably not every start but a little bit probably of every start since he’s gotten healthy back in March.”
Related: Rebel Insider: Big park won’t change Ole Miss pitching approach and philosophy much, if at all
