Ole Miss Baseball hits the road for the first time this season
For the first time this season, the Ole Miss baseball team will have to play away from Oxford. The Rebels will play three opponents this weekend — one of them ranked — at the Chanticleer Classic in Conway, S.C.
Tate Blackmon is batting .440 for the Rebels this season. (Photo credit: Joshua McCoy, Ole Miss Athletics)
Ole Miss (7-1) is ranked 13th nationally after taking 2-of-3 games from then-No. 2 Louisville at University Stadium/Swayze Field. Now the Rebs will take on Ball State, Cincinnati and No. 18 Coastal Carolina.
Tate Blackman is still on fire at the plate, leading Ole Miss with a .440 batting average with a pair of doubles. J.B. Woodman is hitting .333 and leads the team with 11 runs batted in on the year.
That offense will go against three teams the Rebels have never faced in their history. Here is a look at the Rebels’ opponents this weekend:
BALL STATE, 3-5, Friday 11 a.m.
The Cardinals have only won three games this year and lost five, but one of those losses was to then-No. 5 Oregon State by one run. Caleb Stayton paces BSU with a .406 average with a homer and a team-high 12 rbi. Alex Call is batting .379 and has stolen five bases.
Ole Miss will send Brady Bramlett to the mound with his 2-0 record and an earned run average of 2.70. He will be opposed by senior lefty Kevin Marnon who is 1-1 with a 2.13 ERA.
Something cool about Ball State:
The Muncie, Ind., school has some cool alums. They include David Letterman, Three’s Company star Joyce DeWitt, Garfield cartoonist Jim Davis and John Schnatter. He is better known to college students as Papa John.
NO. 18 COASTAL CAROLINA, 5-3, Saturday 2 p.m.
Coastal Carolina is the third team Ole Miss has faced this year that played in an NCAA regional last season. Anthony Marks paces the Chanticleers with a .348 average, but the best hitter is G.K. Young at .338 with a team high 14 hits and he has driven in 13 runs.
Those guys will face Ole Miss pitcher Chad Smith who is 0-1 and has a 4.22 ERA for the Rebels. CCU will counter with senior Tyler Poole. The right hander is 2-0 and has a minute 0.84 earned run average.
Something cool about Coastal Carolina:
The school has one of the coolest-sounding mascots in sports — the Chanticleer. For those who are wondering, that is a rooster that appears in literature in such works as The Canterbury Tales.
CINCINNATI, 0-7, Sunday 10 a.m.
Winless Cincy is probably not looking forward to seeing the Rebels. The Bearcats have already lost to SEC foes LSU, Georgia and Tennessee this season. UC is only hitting .183 as a team with Manny Rodriguez is leading the squad at just .259 with  pair of doubles. Only five players are hitting over .200.
Ole Miss sends Sean Johnson and his 2-0 record to the hill and Cincinnati is unsure of its starter. As a team, UC is allowing the opposition to hit .269 on the season. Amazingly, Cam Allred as an earned run average of 81.
Something cool about Cincinnati:
Three United States Presidents were born in the Cincinnati area — Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison and William Howard Taft.
(Feature image credit: Amanda Swain, The Rebel Walk)
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
