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Ole Miss

Ole Miss survives the loser's bracket and set for the Oxford Regional Championship game

11by: Jake Thompson06/02/25JakeThompsonOn3
NCAA Baseball: NCAA Oxford Regional-First Round Mississippi at Murray State
Jun 1, 2025; Oxford, MS, USA; Mississippi Rebels outfielder Mitchell Sanford (4) and first base Will Furniss (36) after scoring on a passed ball during the third inning against the Murray State Racers. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

After Murray State sent Ole Miss to the loser’s bracket on Friday in the the two team’s opening game of the Oxford Regional Mike Bianco had a simple message.

Teams have advanced to the Super Regional round out of the loser’s bracket before and the Rebels would have to be the next one to do so.

The job is not finished but Ole Miss did a lot of the heavy lifting on Sunday beating Georgia Tech and the Racers to force a winner-take-all game 7 on Monday at 5 p.m. CT for the Oxford Regional championship.

“Proud that they played so well today,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “Proud that they played the 18 innings. What I mean by that is it didn’t seem like we had lulls. Didn’t seem like we were sleeping through innings on both sides of the ball. I thought we were really good.”

The Yellow Jackets got sent to the loser’s bracket after Murray State beat them 13-11 in Saturday’s winner’s game. Whoever escaped out of the first game of the day on Sunday really felt like the team that would win it all.

Ole Miss (43-20) out-hit Georgia Tech in the 11-9 win to send the Yellow Jackets home and start head coach Danny Hall’s retirement.

A clutch RBI single by Will Furniss in the seventh inning proved to be the winning run to keep the Rebels alive this postseason.

“Our offense always seems to come back,” Furniss said. “When you have as much firepower as our offense does. I believe we actually have the school record of single-season home runs. It’s one swing of the bat. It can change in an instant. We never really feel like we’re too far out of a game.”

One accomplishment was done but the biggest one was waiting in the wings in the form of Murray State.

Turns out the bats stayed hot and Ole Miss out-slugged the Racers, 19-8, on 18 hits to force Monday’s game.

The Rebels used five home runs, including back-to-back-to-back long balls in the fourth inning by Furniss, Judd Utermark and Isaac Humphrey. All three were hit on the first pitch of the at-bat.

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