The Recap: Ole Miss Baseball Clinches Series Win Over No. 9 Vanderbilt Commodores

The No. 23 Ole Miss Rebels clinched their first series win since April 5 at Kentucky as they defeated the No. 9 Vanderbilt Commodores 7-1 on Saturday evening at Swayze Field.

Vanderbilt hopped on the board first as center fielder RJ Jackson stole third and home to open the scoring for the Commodores and give them a 1-0 lead in the second inning.

Commodores pitcher Cody Bowker sat down 8 Rebels in a row before allowing his first base runner of the game as he hit the Rebels’ nine hitter Luke Cheng, before bouncing back with a strikeout to strand Cheng at first.

After a long first few innings for Riley Maddox, he finally helped his pitch count out in the fourth after sitting down the Commodores in order for the first time as the game remained at 1-0.

The Rebels finally put themselves in the hit column as Luke Hill lined a single into center field to lead off the fourth.

Ole Miss juiced the bases for Isaac Humphrey and on the first pitch he wore one to the knee to drive in the Rebels first run of the game in the fourth.

Austin Fawley quickly jumped on a 1-0 pitch after dropping a single in front of Jackson in center field to drive in two runs and give the Rebels their first lead of 3-1.

That lead was quickly extended as Ryan Moreman launched his first home run in over a month, and tenth on the year, for a three-run shot to give Ole Miss a 6-1 lead with just one out in the inning.

Cheng then smacked a single up the middle to knock Bowker out of the game after 3.1 IP where he recorded 6 strikeouts, but could not get himself out of the fourth inning jam.

Vanderbilt turned to Matthew Shorey as the first man out of the bullpen and after a lead off double, a play at the plate and a strikeout finally put an end to the Rebels explosion.

The Rebels quickly put themselves up to bat again as Maddox threw just 6 pitches and Cheng made a pair of great plays including a tough 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.

The Rebels’ bats stayed hot as Judd Utermark sent his second home run in two days deep into left field as it scraped over the wall for a solo homer to extend the Rebels lead to 7-1.

Riley Maddox, despite the large pitch count early, found a groove and set the Rebels pitching season high for innings pitched as he completed the seventh inning with just 88 pitches.

Maddox's outing was cut there as they turned to Brayden Jones out of the pen to begin the eighth.

Jones cruised through the eighth and with the six-run lead; he was sent back out for the ninth to close the game.

Jones recorded the first two outs quickly but after back to back errors and a long at bat leading to a walk, Rebels skipper Mike Bianco turned to closer Connor Spencer for the first time in two weeks.

Spencer needed just four pitchers as he struck out Colin Barcazi to end the game and secure the Rebels first series win in 3 weeks.

Takeaways:

The Rebels bats were sat down early as their first 8 batters were retired in order and only had one runner reach base through three innings.

However, after the fourth inning the Rebels bats exploded putting up a 6 spot in the fourth to command the lead as their timely hitting with runners on was perfect.

Outside of that inning, they may have not added on a ton of runs, but they still worked good at bats and drew base runners to keep cutting into the Vandy pitching staff.

As for the pitching, it was shaky to start, but Maddox really turned around his outing finishing his day with 7 innings pitched, 4 hits, 1 earned run, 5 strikeouts and just 1 free pass via a hit by pitch.

Despite, Maddox's impressive outing, the most valuable player on the field today was Cheng.

Cheng had a great day at the plate as he broke up the perfect games as well as knocked out Bowker the following inning, but more importantly he made some key plays on defense that coincided Maddox's outing.

Cheng finished the day going 1-1, getting hit by 2 pitches, and recording 7 assists and a put out defensively.

This win moves the Rebels season record to 31-12 and 21-6 in the conference as they knock Vanderbilt to 30-13 overall and 11-9 in the conference.

The Rebels and Commodores will finish out this series on Sunday afternoon as first pitch is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CT on SEC Network+ as Ole Miss looks to complete the sweep.