Mississippi State, Southern Miss drop in D1Baseball rankings after rough conference openers

After a rough opening to conference play, Mississippi State and Southern Miss dropped in the rankings while Ole Miss remains outside of the top 25.

The Bulldogs (16-4, 1-2 SEC) fell three spots to No. 6 in the latest D1Baseball poll after losing their opening conference series at now-No. 4 Arkansas, a place the maroon and white have not won a series since 2007. Brian O’Connor, in his conference debut as an SEC head coach, experienced the brutality of the league that has boasted the last six national champions. Mississippi State was on the wrong side of a walk-off in game one, before splitting games two and three during Saturday’s doubleheader.

The Golden Eagles (16-4, 1-2 Sun Belt) suffered an opening conference series loss in the state of Arkansas State. Christian Ostrander’s club dropped five spots to No. 12 in the poll after losing two out of three to the Red Wolves over the weekend. Southern Miss dropped game one of the series, battled back dominantly in game two, but failed to advance runners in scoring position in the rubber match.

“Southern Miss slides down five spots to No. 12 after suffering its first series loss of the year on the road at Arkansas State, although three midweek SEC wins and another single win against Oregon State help cushion USM’s fall,” staff writers at D1Baseball said.

Meanwhile, Ole Miss (16-5, 1-2 SEC) remains unranked after a suboptimal week of baseball. Mike Bianco’s Rebels suffered a walk-off loss at Southern Miss on Tuesday, then found redemption in a thrilling 9-8 win in a Friday night win at No. 2 Texas. But the momentum did not carry over into games two and three, as the red and blue were outscored 19-4 in the final two contests. Making matters worse, star right-handed pitcher Cade Townsend had to exit Saturday’s game early with an unspecified injury.

The full top 25 can be found below: