Must-See Highlights: Federico, Ole Miss play long ball and Elliott bounces back to open SEC slate
Hunter Elliott had his roughest outing to date a week ago.
Head coach Mike Bianco attributed his struggles to Elliott dealing with the ‘crud.’ His velocity was down and his location was all over the place.
Understandable, then, if there was some concern going into his next start, the SEC opener for No. 13 Ole Miss baseball against No. 3 Arkansas on Friday.
Turns out Elliott was just fine.
He hovered around 90 with his fastball, even topping out at 92. For reference, Elliott was mostly 89 in helping Ole Miss to its first-ever national title in 2022. He missed each of the last two seasons recovering from injury.
Elliott struck out eight and walked just one over his 5.0 innings. Arkansas scored two runs against him on five hits and Elliott picked up his fourth win in a series-opening, 10-6 statement from the Rebels (15-2, 1-0 SEC).
“I’m just glad we got the win,” Elliott said. “Our offense was incredible. Every inning I was out there they put up a run. It’s kind of easy to pitch with that.”
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Freshman phenom Hayden Federico hit a home run on the first SEC pitch he saw. Mitch Sanford, a transfer from UNO, homered, too, while the Rebels played pepper with the infield and outfield to pile runs up early.
Sanford was 3 for 4 with four RBI.
He also doubled, walked and scored two runs. Louisville transfer Isaac Humphrey was 3 for 4 with a double, walk, run scored and RBI.
Elliott out-dueled Arkansas left-hander Zach Root, who entered the day 2-0 with a 2.11 ERA. Root took the loss once Ole Miss chased him after three innings. He was tagged for seven runs, all earned, on 10 hits. Root struck out three and walked two.
Arkansas fell to 16-2 (0-1). First pitch of Game 2 in the three-game weekend series has been pushed back to Saturday at 6 p.m. CT due to the threat of inclement weather.
The included highlights were provided by Ole Miss Athletics.
