OXFORD, Miss. – Mizzou Baseball dropped the middle game of a three-game series at Ole Miss, 3-1, on Saturday afternoon (April 22) at Swayze Field. Mizzou junior RHP Tanner Houck (Collinsville, Ill.) was very good again on Saturday, tossing 8.0 innings, allowing just three runs on five hits with seven strikeouts. But Ole Miss’ pitching staff limited Mizzou to just three hits on Saturday as a solo homer from junior RF Trey Harris (Powder Springs, Ga.) supplied all the scoring for Mizzou. Harris is now third in the SEC with his 12 homers, the most by a Mizzou player since Aaron Senne hit 22 in 2010.
Mizzou falls to 27-13 on the year and 8-9 in SEC play while Ole Miss moves to 24-15 and 8-9 in SEC play. The rubber game of the pivotal three-game series will be played Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Houck took the loss, falling to 3-6 on the year, while Ryan Rolison earned the win, going 6.0 innings and allowing just one hit with nine strikeouts. He did walk five but moved to 5-2 on the year. Dallas Woolfolk earned his eighth save, but Mizzou made it interesting, bringing the winning run to the plate twice.
After Mizzou stranded a pair in the first, Houck struggled with his command in the first, issuing a walk and hitting two batters. An RBI groundout to first scored a run as Ole Miss gained a 1-0 lead after the first. Freshman SS Chris Cornelius (St. Louis, Mo.) made a great play on what looked to be a two-run single up the middle to end the frame.
Houck settled in from there, tallying a pair of strikeouts in the second during a 1-2-3 frame. He then threw up another zero as Ole Miss went three-up, three-down in the third. Ole Miss’ Ryan Olenek led off the fourth inning with a double, but Houck pitched around that as he continued to look sharp.
Cornelius tallied Mizzou’s first hit with a single through the left side with one out in the top of the fifth, but Mizzou didn’t score. Ole Miss then put together a two-out rally in its half of the fifth inning. Will Golsan tallied a two-out single after a Tate Blackman walk and Blackman took third while Golsan moved to second on the throw. With two runners in scoring position, 3B Colby Bortles came up and hit a bouncing ball up the middle for a two-run single to extend the Ole Miss lead to 3-0.
Junior C Brett Bond (St. Louis, Mo.) drew a two-out walk in the sixth, but Ole Miss’ pitching staff retired the next seven Mizzou batters, taking a 3-0 lead into the ninth inning. Woolfolk took over from there and Harris launched his team-leading 12th homer of the year to get Mizzou on the board with no outs in the ninth. Bond then hit a double off the wall in right and Nelson Mompierre (Miami, Fla.) drew a walk to bring the winning run to the plate. But Woolfolk got the last two men to cap off his eighth save.
— Mizzou Athletics —