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Ole Miss baseball stars discuss journey from last team in to CWS Final

Wade-Peeryby:Wade Peery•06/24/22
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(Photo by Kevin Langley/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The Ole Miss Rebels are still riding the wave of a historic season in their baseball program’s history. On Thursday, they punched their tickets to this weekend’s College World Series Final in Omaha, Nebraska. It will be the first time in Ole Miss baseball history that they’ve played for the national championship. They’re set to face off against the Oklahoma Sooners in a best two-out-of-three series for college baseball’s most coveted prize. On Friday, a few of the Rebels players’, third baseman (Justin Bench) and pitcher (Hunter Elliott), spoke with the media about their journey from being the last at-large team being selected in the 2022 NCAA Tournament all the way to the CWS Final.

“Yeah, I mean, we were 7-14 at one point. I think it’s a lot about belief. I think all 40 guys we had on our team at the time, we never stopped believing. We’re here now, and the NCAA put us in. Now we’re playing for a national championship,” Bench said.

His teammate, lefty Hunter Elliott, also spoke about the team’s remarkable journey this season. “Yeah, like he said, just a ton of belief in the guys. We’ve always thought we were this good. I think at one point we were ranked No. 1 or whatever. But like in baseball, sometimes you scuffle, and we were scuffling there for a while, but we just continued to believe and knew we were good enough, and we ended up here,” Elliott said.

Ole Miss shutout Arkansas on Thursday night

Ole Miss punched their tickets to the CWS Final after junior Dylan DeLucia pitched a masterpiece of a complete game, shutting out the Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday for a 2-0 victory. DeLucia spent his first two seasons at Northwest Florida State College. He delivered the goods when his team needed them the most, pitching the first shutout by a SEC pitcher in the College World Series since LSU’s Brett Laxton did it in 1993.

Game 1 of the CWS Final between Ole Miss and the Oklahoma Sooners is set to begin at 7:00 PM EST on Saturday, June 25th. Game 2 between the two teams is set for Sunday, June 26th at 3:00 PM EST. If necessary, Game 3 will be played on Monday, June 27 at 7:00 PM EST. All three games will be nationally televised on ESPN.