Ole Miss baseball lands two key prospects from transfer portal

The Ole Miss Rebels‘ baseball program is already coming off a historic season which saw the team bring home their first ever national crown in the 2022 College World Series. On Sunday evening, they reeled in two massive prospects via the transfer portal, Northwestern’s Anthony Calarco and Tulane’s Ethan Groff, per Kendall Rogers of d1baseball.com.

Last season, Calarco started 51 games for the Wildcats, hitting .325 with 54 RBIs and a team-high 13 home runs. As a fielder at first base, he is a .990 career fielder. Groff finished last year with a .404 batting average, nine home runs, 15 doubles, and 35 RBIs for the Green Wave. As a fielder in right field, he only had one error the entire season.

The transfer portal news comes just a few weeks after the Ole Miss baseball program lost one of its legends, Tim Elko, after he was selected by the Chicago White Sox with the No. 311 pick in the 10th round of the 2022 MLB Draft.

Two seasons ago, Elko tore his ACL and his future at Ole Miss was in doubt — as he had to decide whether or not he would return for another season. Last season, the Rebels were in trouble after beginning the year with a 7-14 record in SEC play, before beginning a miraculous run to the national championship and winning it all.

Elko finished his career with a .294 batting average and 46 home runs, including the Ole Miss single-season record with 24 home runs last year. The title was the first in program history, and the fifth total national title for the school across all sports.

Ole Miss was the final team to get the call for the 2022 NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday. At the end of the tournament, they were the last team standing, claiming college baseball’s most coveted piece of hardware. The party will likely continue in Oxford, Mississippi for quite some time.

On3’s Austin Brezina and Griffin McVeigh also contributed to this article.