Arizona routs Ole Miss, advances to Omaha
Jun. 14—TUCSON, Ariz. — After ace Doug Nikhazy did so well Saturday night, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco flashed his next best card with a chance to get to Omaha.
Taylor Broadway set a Rebels record with 16 saves this season as the team's closer. He wasn't as effective in his first college start, however, and 5 seed Arizona defeated Ole Miss 16-3 in Game 3 of the Tucson Super Regional on Sunday night.
The Ole Miss (45-22) season ends one win from the College World series for the second-straight full season and for the fifth time in seven super regionals under Bianco.
"We'll keep banging on the door until we get through again. It's nothing specific. You can look at tonight and see we played a really good Arizona team. We showed some holes in our game to this point where we're a little lite on the mound especially once you get past Doug and Taylor. That's not a secret," Bianco said.
Bianco's name has been mentioned prominently in connection with the LSU job which remains unfilled.
Arizona (45-16) will face Vanderbilt in Omaha on Saturday.
Broadway saved all three games in last weekend's Oxford Regional. Most of his 29 appearances had been two innings or less though he did throw four innings for an Opening Day save against TCU.
Ideally, Broadway would have entered in the seventh or eighth inning with Ole Miss leading, but if the game did not play out that way — turns out it did not — Broadway would have had no save opportunity.
Broadway was not as sharp as he was a week ago. Leaving some balls up and over the plate he allowed eight hits and six runs, all earned, in three innings.
"There were an angst that if we went with one of our other options then you don't get your best bullet which is Taylor, your best arm, while the game was still intact," Bianco said.
The Rebels' offense also lacked a certain edge.
Ole Miss had 16 hits in a 12-3 Game 2 win Saturday night. A day later the Rebels couldn't time up with fastballs and made weak contact if any in the early innings.
The Rebels got their first two hits in the third. They pushed across a run on a Cael Baker sacrifice fly to tie the game at 1 but missed chances to do greater damage in the inning.
Ole Miss had only three hits over the first five innings and five for the game. Freshman shortstop Jacob Gonzalez had a home run in the eighth. He was 5 for 11 with three doubles, two home runs and four RBIs for the weekend.
Meanwhile Broadway wasn't the only Rebels pitcher to struggle.
Jack Dougherty behind Broadway could retire only one of five batters, and Brandon Johnson was roughed up too.
The Rebels used five pitchers in all, each giving up at least one run.
Arizona's 20 hits were the most allowed by Ole Miss pitching this season.
"Their hitters didn't just hit pitches down the middle. They were hitting good off-speed pitches off the plate, pitches down in the dirt. I was going to block pitches, and they were hitting doubles in the gap," Ole Miss catcher Hayden Dunhurst said.
