Rebs use late innings to beat SEMO, win seventh straight game

OXFORD | Excellent defense and missed chances kept Ole Miss quiet for a while, but the Rebels did enough in the late innings to pull away from SEMO, 6-4, on Wednesday.

The Rebels scored two in the seventh to tie the game and separated things an inning later for their seventh straight win. Ole Miss overcame three errors that tightened the game.

Ole Miss hosts Grambling for a three-game set this weekend.

Will Golsan hit his second career home run during an important time for the Rebels. With two outs and a runner on first, Golsan sent a pitch over the left field wall to tie the game during the seventh inning. The sophomore went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored, adding a single in another at-bat.

"It was a huge at-bat," Mike Bianco said. "I thought we had some really good swings early on. Some things just didn't fall in for us. You have to compliment their defense. They made play after play after play. That squelched some rallies and we squelched some by not putting at-bats together."

"Dude was dealing the whole mound for them," Golsan said. "I got in my two-strike approach and tried to get a barrel on it. It felt good. I kept my hands back and tried to drive it somewhere."

Andy Pagnozzi got his first career start and allowed one run, not earned, on four hits. He struck out three without a walk over four innings. He threw 57 pitches, 39 strikes and has a 1.38 ERA on the season. He works both sides of the plate well with the fastball and has shown plenty of consistency this season. The staff was really excited about him when he signed, and I get it.

"He's been good every time out," Bianco said about Pagnozzi. "He commands all his pitches, especially the fastball on both sides of the plate... It's fun calling the game because you can do different things with him that some of the other guys can't do."

Andrew Lowe was the announced starter earlier in the week, but it switched to Pagnozzi on Tuesday, due to Lowe being diagnosed with strep throat. The freshman still came in for relief work and allowed two runs in an inning. He didn't give up a hit but walked two batters. I expect him to keep getting some opportunities to get comfortable.

Dallas Woolfolk inherited Lowe's two runners and got to two outs, but then an error on Colby Bortles and a two-run single gave Southeast Missouri a two-run advantage at the time. Woolfolk was very good again and probably deserved a better fate.

Will Stokes had his best outing of the year, striking out three batters in a six-batter appearance. He allowed one runner but got five outs.

Wyatt Short got the win with 1.1 perfect innings.

JB Woodman is hitting .333 this season after a 2-for-4 night that featured a double and an RBI.

Ryan Olenek started in left field today. He went 2-for-4 and only had outfield practice time yesterday. He's normally an infielder.

Ole Miss only got the leadoff runner on once but went 6-for-15 with runners on base and 4-of-12 with runners in scoring position.