No. 10 Ole Miss blasts 6 home runs to eliminate Western Kentucky from the Oxford Regional

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — Mitchell Sanford, Judd Utermark and Austin Fawley each had a multi-homer game and No. 10 national seed Mississippi beat Western Kentucky 8-6 on Saturday in the Oxford Regional.

It marked the first time since at least 1997 that three Rebels each hit two home runs in a game.

Ole Miss (41-20) plays another elimination game on Sunday against the loser of Georgia Tech and Murray State.

The season for Western Kentucky (46-14) came to a close with the second-most single-season wins in program history.

Sanford led off the game with a home run to right field and added his 17th of the season in the sixth for a 7-3 lead.

Fawley followed in the second with Ole Miss’ 109th home run of the season, setting the program’s single-season record and giving Ole Miss a 3-2 lead. Fawley also hit a homer to center — his 19th of the season — in the fourth for a 4-3 lead.

Utermark cleared the batter’s eye for the second time in the tournament to make it 6-3 in the fifth with a 438-foot blast. Utermark sent a shot over the right-field wall in the seventh for his 19th of the season and the team’s 113th.

Ole Miss starter Hunter Elliott (10-3) through six complete innings and allowed just one earned run on eight hits with seven strikeouts and three walks. He became the fourth Rebel in program history to have two seasons with 100 strikeouts.

___

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports