It should’ve been easier for Ole Miss to pick up the win against Georgia in the third round of the SEC tournament. First, lightning delayed the game for several hours in the seventh inning. Once play resumed, the Rebels made it to the top of the eighth up 3-1, and sent out their star closer, Parker Caracci, to finish the game and send them to the next round in the SEC tournament.

After a Bulldog double and an infield single punctuated by a stolen base, the Rebels lead looked vulnerable, but then Caracci coolly struck out the next two batters and it looked like everything was back under control. Then Aaron Schunk stepped up to the plate and bounced Caracci’s pitch right back to him.

All Caracci had to do was throw it to first for the force out, but instead he inexplicably threw it towards home, where catcher Nick Fortes would have to complete a tag at the plate to close the inning. It never came to that, however, as Caracci’s lob home flew over Fortes’ head and the Bulldogs scored two runs while he scrambled to recover the ball.

“Crazy things happen, I don’t really know the answer for it besides there’s just immense pressure in that moment,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said of Caracci’s error in a postgame press conference. “One of the amazing things about that, is then he struck out their best hitter right after that and got off the field. That’s who he is, he can handle it and not let it blow up on him”.

The game would go into the 10th inning locked at 3, and it was there that Georgia took a one-run lead on a LJ Talley solo shot. The Rebels responded well to the deficit, with Thomas Dillard smacking a double to get in scoring position.

Ultimately, it was right fielder Tim Rowe who made the deciding play. Rowe managed to chip a single down the middle and send Dillard home for the win.

“I knew that they had a shift on me, so my approach was to stay middle away,” Rowe said. “I got a changeup, I waited back as long as I thought I could, and luckily I got a little bit of the bat on it and got it through.”

The Rebels 4-3 win means they will face the winner of Auburn vs. Texas A&M in the next round.

“Just a great game, but a crazy game,” Bianco said of the win. “Just proud of our guys, the way we hung in there, I thought Brady Feigl was terrific, Parker was terrific in the pitching. Atkins was able to kind of hold us at bay, we weren’t able to put innings together, then once we went to extra innings and Schunk came in, and he really dominated us for a couple innings. Proud of our guys for being able to put an inning together. Thomas with the big double, and then of course Tim with the big walk off single.”

The Rebels have most likely locked in a top eight seed, and if they advance, they seem primed to host a super regional.

“I think in a weird way they probably wanted to win this game a lot more when that happened for Parker than any other regional or national seed implications,” Bianco said. “I think they know what Parker means to this team and how much he’s done this year to put us in the position that we are. I think they’re all thankful that it ended up that way.”