Ole Miss jumps on Arkansas early while taking a 10-6 win in SEC opener in Oxford

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

Ole Miss lead off hitter Hayden Federrico set the tone for his team on Arkansas’ first pitch of the two team’ SEC opener Friday afternoon and the Rebels never looked back.

Federico homered off Razorback Zach Root and No. 13 Ole Miss went on to score in each of the first six innings en route to a 10-5 win over No. 3 Arkansas in Oxford.

The loss ended the Razorbacks’ 12-game winning streak while the Rebels (15-2, 1-0) bounced back from having their 13-game one ended Tuesday 14-5 against South Alabama.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn was not overreacting to a loss in the the first of 30 SEC games the Razorbacks (16-2, 0-1) will play.

“One game at a time,” Van Horn said. “It’s just one of 30. There’s a bunch of them.” Our guys are just disappointed we lost, but we got to learn from it and just move on.”

That moving on will begin Saturday night at 6 p.m., a change from the originally scheduled 1:30 p.m. first pitch.

Gabe Gaeckle (1-0, 6.16 ERA) is set to pitch for Arkansas and Riley Maddox (3-1, 3.44 ) schedule to pitch for Ole Miss.

“We are setting the game time for the fans, for the players and for everybody so we are not just sitting here waiting,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said.

“With the rain, we are just going to just try and find the best window that we can play.”

Ole Miss was ready from the jump against Arkansas starter and East Carolina transfer Zach Root (2-1).

Freshman designated Federico’s homer in the bottom of the first was the beginning of the Rebels scoring in six straight innings.

Root had bee very accurate with his pitches – 39 strikeouts and 8 walks coming into the contest – but that was not the case against the Rebels.

“Well, really locating,” Van Horn said of Root’s struggles on Friday. “He was pitching from behind a lot and it just was a tough situation.

“Wind blowing out hard, behind in the count. Give credit to Ole Miss’s hitters. They fouled off a lot of pitches and laid off a lot of borderline pitches.  Just not the command that he’s had.”

That was not a problem for Ole Miss starring pitcher Hayden Elliott (4-0, 2.2 ERA), who missed almost two whole seasons after Tommy John surgery, but look the part of an ace now.

“That’s what he does,” Van Horn said. “ We talked about it yesterday as a team, in that you’ve got to find a way to get the hit against him. We got his count up. Fouled off a lot of pitches. Took a lot of pitches. “

Elliott pitched five innings while allowing two runs on five hits, fanning 8, walking one and hitting a batter while throwing 91 pitches, 63 of them strikes.

But Arkansas’ offense – which was hitting .313 coming in and scored 156 runs this season – could not land a big hit against the junior lefty.

“I mean, we had him up to like, he was throwing at least 20 pitches an inning, for the most part,” Vasn Horn said. “We just, it was one run. One run, One run, instead of two and three, and credit to him.

“He got out of some jams and we never got that big hit, so to speak. instead of two and three, and credit to him. He got out of some jams and we never got that big hit, so to speak.”

Bianco was not surprised with Elliott’s effort.

“He is a great competitor,” Bianco said. “It was a tough day to pitch today. A tough day with the wind really blowing out hard – 15 to 20 miles an hour – but he hung in there.

“He gave up a couple of runs early, not a lot of hard hit balls, but we didn’t get a lot of hard hit balls early. I think offenses got some breaks early, but we continue to add on. He was terrific.”

Elliott was understandably with its effort and his team’s.

“It was good,” Elliott said. “I battled there in the middle a little bit. I felt like the heater was playing really solid. The change up was great against a really good offense.

“They are hard to punch out. You get them to two (strikes) and they just fight you to the death. Just a great way to start conference play.”

Root would last just three innings, allowing seven earned runs on 10 hits, walking two, and fanning three while throwing74 pitches, 46 for strikes.

Arkansas did really after Elliott exited with four runs combined in the sixth, seventh and ninth innings.

Razorback Kuhio Aloy was 3 of 5 to elevate his batting average to .473 while Charles Davalan and Rocco Peppi each had two of their team’s 10 hits.

Davalan and Logan Maxwell both homered, but the Razorbacks fanned 14 times in the contest.

The Rebels had 14 hits – at least one each for all nine batters – in a game where Arkansas cut its deficit to 2-1 and 4-2 before Ole Miss answered right back.

“When you look up we scored the firstsix innings and if you do that, you are going to win a lot of baseball fame win a lot of baseball games,” Bianco said.

“And when the other team scores and then you score right away, it kind of a kick in the gut and it takes away the momentum and puts it right back in your dugout.”

Photo courtesy of Ole Miss athletics