Ole Miss and Troy clinched spots in the College World Series on Saturday, each closing out their super regional series with 2-0 sweeps: Ole Miss beat No. 4 Auburn 5-3, and Troy topped Little Rock 7-2.
Ole Miss’s victory in the series-deciding game carried a late punch. The Rebels manufactured offense in two pivotal frames — Judd Utermark ripped a two-run double in the bottom of the sixth, and the eighth inning produced three runs capped by Will Furniss’s two-run blast — lifting the Rebels past Auburn 5-3 and sending them to Omaha.
Troy’s run was steadier but no less decisive. The Trojans scored in five different innings and collected a 7-2 win to complete their sweep. Starter Tommy Egan set the tone on the mound, striking out eight hitters across 7.2 innings while keeping Little Rock’s lineup off balance. Little Rock’s Jerdy Lopez hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth, a late solo shot that narrowed the margin but came too late to change the outcome.
Those two results narrowed the bracket immediately: Ole Miss and Troy are now locked into Omaha as the remaining super regionals resolve the final berths. Ole Miss’s 5-3 scoreline and Troy’s 7-2 result are the clearest outcomes of the day, but they landed amid a broader Saturday of decisive games across the super regionals.
Other Saturday outcomes left a mixed map for the final weekend. No. 16 West Virginia overwhelmed Cal Poly 17-1 to win its series 2-0, while No. 5 North Carolina shut out USC 4-0 to even that series 1-1. No. 3 Georgia beat No. 14 Mississippi State 13-12 to take a 1-0 lead, and top seeds made statements: Oklahoma beat No. 15 Kansas 8-1, No. 6 Texas routed No. 11 Oregon 11-3, and No. 7 Alabama blanked St. John’s 8-0 — each taking 1-0 series leads.
The friction in Oxford made Saturday’s Ole Miss result sharper. Auburn entered the weekend as the higher seed and had taken an initial series lead, but that 1-0 advantage did not hold; Ole Miss’s late offense in Game 2 erased the edge and ended Auburn’s run. The Rebels combined a timely two-run double with a three-run eighth that included Furniss’s two-run homer to flip a series that had begun in Auburn’s favor.
Troy’s sweep underscored a different pattern: workmanlike pitching backed by distributed run production. Egan’s 7.2 innings and eight strikeouts gave Troy the length it needed; the Trojans’ ability to score across five innings prevented Little Rock from mounting a sustained counterpunch, even with Lopez’s late homer.
These results matter today because they reduce the unknowns on the path to Omaha. The super regionals are best-of-three series that directly award College World Series berths, and two more teams earned those automatic tickets Saturday. With West Virginia also finished and other series tilted but unfinished, the field is rapidly taking shape.
The question now is straightforward and urgent for bracket-watchers: which teams will fill the remaining slots alongside Ole Miss, Troy and West Virginia? The remaining super regional deciders on the schedule will settle that question over the next games, and the full bracket is available at NCAA.com for a look at the matchups that remain.
