T.J. McCants Earns SEC Freshman of the Week Honors

OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss freshman T.J. McCants helped the Rebels earn the sweep over Alabama this past weekend and has been named SEC Freshman of the Week by the league office as announced Monday.

McCants hit .364 in the series against the Tide, with a team-high five runs scored, a double, a home run and three RBI.

In Game 1, the Cantonment, Fla. native got the rally started as he led things off with a HBP. He scored the first run in the eight-run comeback and drove in the final run for the Rebs with an RBI groundout as Ole Miss came from behind to win 9-6.

McCants was a part of both the Rebels’ runs in the 2-0 win in Game 2 — hitting a solo home run in the fifth and, in the eighth, scoring on an RBI single from Kevin Graham after McCants had reached base on a hit of his own.

Unload on one @mccants_tj!

💻 https://t.co/R25SjBA0jw pic.twitter.com/WUZ9vawxx7

— Ole Miss Baseball (@OleMissBSB) March 27, 2021

In Game 3, he went 2-for-5 with two more runs scored and an RBI. He recorded an RBI single in the sixth and later scored on an RBI double from John Rhys Plumlee. In the ninth, McCants hit a double off the right-center wall that was almost a home run. He later scored on a hit from Justin Bench.

Rebels earning accolades

McCants is the third Ole Miss player to earn SEC honors as Peyton Chatagnier and Tim Elko were named Player of the Week in Weeks 1 and 3.

McCants is the first Rebel to win Freshman of the Week this year. The last time Ole Miss had a player win that ward was when catcher Hayden Dunhurst did so in the last week of the COVID-interrupted 2020 season.

(TJ McCants feature image courtesy of Billy Schuerman)