Texas overcomes football-like atmosphere to defeat Ole Miss 6-4
The Associated Press
Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle/The Associated Press
OXFORD — Will Crouch hit a tiebreaking home run and Texas advanced to its fourth straight College World Series with a 6-4 win over Ole Miss in Game 3 of their super regional series tonight.
Crouch led off the sixth inning with his sixth homer of the year, a drive to left-center off Eric Fowler that broke a 3-all tie and put the Longhorns ahead to stay.
Ole Miss brought the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs in the ninth after a walk to Chris Coghlan and a single by Brian Pettway, but J. Brent Cox struck out Stephen Head to end it.
Texas (51-16) overcame a raucous, football-like atmosphere at Swayze Field to win the final two games of the series and advance to the College World Series for the 32nd time, remaining in the hunt for its sixth national championship. The most recent title came in 2002, the year the Longhorns started their successful string.
The Longhorns, the only College World Series team from last year headed back to Omaha, will play Big 12 rival Baylor on Saturday.
Robby Hudson had two run-scoring singles to give Texas some late-inning insurance.
He drove in Taylor Teagarden in the sixth to make it 5-3. After Ole Miss closed to one run in the top of the eighth on a sacrifice fly by Zack Cozart, Hudson extended the lead back to two runs by delivering another RBI single in the bottom of the inning.
Freshman Kenn Kasparek (8-0) came on in the sixth and allowed one run on two hits. Cox worked the final 1 2-3 innings for his 17th save. Fowler (7-3) lost for the first time in eight starts.
Texas has been responsible for ending three of the most promising seasons in Rebels history. The Longhorns eliminated Ole Miss from the College World Series in 1969 and 1972, and this time they denied the Rebels their first berth in the series in 32 years.
The small-balling Longhorns used the longball to win the series from the Rebels (48-20). Texas entered the weekend with 46 home runs, but hit three in its two victories.
Nick Peoples, who hit his first career homer on Sunday, followed up that performance by having a hand in each of the Longhorns' first three runs.
He walked to start the first, was bunted to second - the Longhorns' 100th sacrifice bunt of the season - and scored on a double by Seth Johnston to give the Longhorns a 1-0 lead.
Peoples later tied it at 2-all when he singled in Chance Wheeless in the second, and came around to score when Johnston blooped a double to left made it 3-2.
Peoples also saved a run and robbed Head of extra bases when he made a diving catch on a first-inning drive to right field.
Ole Miss briefly led 2-1 in the top of the second when Cozart doubled home two runs. After falling behind by a run later that inning, the Rebels tied it at 3-all in the fifth on a run-scoring groundout by Pettway.
Football-like atmosphere? When does 50-70K football fans get compared to 7K?
