Ole Miss punches ticket to Omaha by sweeping Auburn in Super Regional

Ole Miss is headed back to the College World Series. The Rebels clinched the Auburn Super Regional on Saturday with a 5-3 win over the Tigers at Plainsman Park, finishing the series sweep after taking Game 1, 6-4, the night before. For Ole Miss, it is the program’s first trip to Omaha since winning it all in 2022, and the seventh time it has reached the CWS under head coach Mike Bianco.

In the deciding game, Ole Miss had to grind for offense against an Auburn pitching staff that kept the score close through five innings. The Rebels’ breakthrough came in the sixth, when Brayden Randle opened the frame with a single and Dom Decker reached on a hit-by-pitch. Judd Utermark then doubled to right center, driving in both runners to tie the game at 2. Auburn struck first, but the Rebels’ timing turned the moment into the series-clinching swing point.

Taylor Rabe gave Ole Miss the lift it needed on the mound. Ole Miss used him as the starter in Game 2, and he worked 7.0 innings, the longest outing by a Rebel this season, allowing just two runs in the process. According to Ole Miss, Rabe struck out eight batters and walked one, then preserved the one-run swing by limiting the Tigers after taking over the later innings.

Ole Miss’s late power finally separated the teams in the eighth inning. When the game was tied, Will Furniss and Tristan Bissetta went back-to-back with homers, with Ole Miss scoring three runs in the inning to take a 5-2 lead. Furniss’s two-run blast moved the Rebels in front for good, and Bissetta followed immediately to add insurance. The rally did not start with one big hit, but with a sequence of at-bats that kept Auburn from escaping the inning.

From there, the bullpen handled the closing work. JP Robertson and Walker Hooks each pitched a relief inning in the game, with Hooks earning a save for his ninth of the season. Ole Miss added a late defensive insurance moment as well, with a strong throw at third base helping end Auburn’s final push and keep the score fixed at 5-3.

The sweep over Auburn has immediate meaning in the Ole Miss program context. Bianco’s three CWS trips match the coaching standard set by Tom Swayze, tying the program mark for appearances by a head coach. It also underscores a roster that has been built to win close games late, with starter efficiency followed by bullpen innings and then, when needed, a punch from the middle of the lineup.

Next, Ole Miss will wait for its first opponent at the College World Series as the bracket settles. Ole Miss’s athletics department lists the program’s CWS start as June 12, and the Rebels will enter Omaha with a full two-game sweep over a No. 5 seed and a confidence boost that comes from finishing what it started in Auburn. The primary question now is whether Ole Miss can transfer this postseason balance to a tournament where every team has one more pitching weapon and fewer mistakes to punish.