Ole Miss snapped out of its slump, snapped Mississippi State’s winning streak, and snapped right back into the Southeastern Conference Tourament picture.

The Rebels jumped on Mississippi State for six runs in the bottom of the first inning Saturday, and went on to beat the Bulldogs 12-3 in the series finale in Oxford.

It was just the fourth win in 14 games for the Rebels, who had lost the first two games of the series with MSU and slipped out of a guaranteed spot in the SEC Tournament. Saturday’s win, combined with other results around the league, moved Ole Miss back into a tie with Mississippi State for eighth place overall. Both teams are a half-game ahead of Alabama and a half-game behind both Arkansas and Alabama.

Ole Miss finishes the regular season with a three-game series at Arkansas beginning on Thursday. Mississippi State, which had an eight-game winning streak snapped Saturday, hosts LSU.

“We played well today,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said. “I’m proud of the way we came out tonight. The past two days have been hard. I feel like we gave the first game away and then Friday night they beat us in every aspect of the game. We came out tonight with a lot of balance and life, which tends to happen when your backs are against the wall.”

Although Mississippi State won the first two games of the series, it was never in Saturday’s finale. Ole Miss scored six runs on five hits in the first inning to jump in front 6-0 and never looked back. Matt Tracy and Blake Newalu each singled in a pair of runs.

Ole Miss finished with 15 hits in all. Alex Yarbrough was 4-for-5 and scored four runs, Tracy drove in three runs and Will Allen went 2-for-5 with a pair of RBIs. Matt Snyder went 3-for-4 with three RBIs, two of them on a homer down the right field line in the sixth inning to make it 10-1.

Jonathan Ogden went 2-for-4 with a home run and two runs scored for Mississippi State, and C.T. Bradford also had two hits and an RBI.

“Well, we were able to win eight in a row,” Mississippi State coach John Cohen said. “I felt like this was the sloppiest game we’ve played in a while. Credit to Ole Miss. I think they came out and realized their whole season was on the line here. They just did a better job than we did today.”