Ole Miss baseball loses lead late against Memphis

Oxford, Miss.- (Release) The Rebels hosted Memphis Tuesday night for their second match up in a week, dropping the rematch 11-9 as Ole Miss splits the season series 1-1 with Memphis.

Ole Miss (18-14) will host its second midweek game tomorrow night against Alcorn State at 6:30 p.m. as they prepare for their weekend series against Mississippi State.The Tigers will make the short trek back to Memphis, 18-16 overall and 2-4 in AAC play.

Ole Miss and Memphis came out of the gates trading blows. After the Rebels went down 1-0 in the top of the first, Calvin Harris crushed a ball to straight away center field to even the game up in the bottom half of the inning.

The Tigers stormed back and scored a run in the top of the second, then four in the top of the third. After going down 6-1 in the bottom of the fourth, Calvin Harris would lead off making it to first on an error. Kemp Alderman stepped up to the dish and hammered a 480 foot two-RBI homer off the scoreboard. That wouldn’t be all for the Rebels, John Kramer helped the cause with a RBI-double along with a Chatagnier sacrifice fly making the score 6-5.

Cole Ketchum and the Rebel defense put together a 1-2-3 top of the fifth to make way for another big bottom half. Ethan Groff led off the inning reaching first on a dropped third strike. Which led to a Harris RBI-double that knotted the score up at 6-6.

After going down 7-6 in the top of the sixth, the Rebels would come back with more fireworks in the bottom of the seventh. With two outs, Harris got on base with a double and Alderman reached on a walk to keep the inning alive. Anthony Calarco launched a three-RBI homer out to center field to give the Rebels a 9-7 lead.

Sam Tookoian strung together two big innings picking up three strikeouts to take the Rebels into the ninth inning with the lead.

Memphis hit back-to-back-to-back home runs to take a 11-9 lead in the top of the ninth to defeat Ole Miss.

Mason Nichols (1-3) received the loss and Memphis pitcher Carson Stinnett (2-0) picked up the win. Dalton Kendrick recorded his ninth save for the Tigers.

Next Up

Ole Miss plays Alcorn State in Oxford on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

(Feature image credit: Josh McCoy, Ole Miss)

Evelyn Van Pelt

Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn’s love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception.