No. 13 Ole Miss powers past Ball State; Southern Miss blanks Michigan State

Ole Miss cruised to a 7-3 victory over Ball State Friday at Springs Brooks Stadium. The Rebels (8-1) used a pair of three-run innings to win the first game of the 2016 Chanticleer Classic, hosted by Coastal Carolina University.

Ole Miss scored seven runs on nine hits. Switch hitter Henri Lartigue went 3-for-3 from the right side of the plate and reaching base all four times he stepped up to the plate. Cameron Dishon and Colby Bortles each homered for the first time this season, belting home runs in the third inning. Bortles led the Rebels with three RBIs on his two hits. Sophomore Will Golsan added a multi-hit day, going 2-for-4.

On the mound, Brady Bramlett (3-0) earned his third win in as many starts. The redshirt junior went 6 innings, allowing two runs on four hits and striking out five. Freshman Dallas Woolfolk (1) pitched the remainder of the game to earn the rare three-inning save.

Southern Miss 2, Michigan State 0: Cord Cockrell registered a career-high eight strikeouts and blanked Michigan State for seven innings to lead the Golden Eagles (8-2) in the opening game of the Cox Diamond Invitational at Bayfront Stadium. Cockrell allowed just four hits in the game on 93 pitches to improve to 2-0 on the campaign.

Southern Miss got its first run in the second. Chase Scott led off the inning by reaching on an error by the MSU third baseman. After a pop out and a sacrifice bunt, Storme Cooper singled up the middle to drive home Scott for his ninth RBI of the season. It was the first of two hits for Cooper as the Golden Eagles notched six in the contest. Pascagoula's Tracy Hadley then started the eighth with a triple and scored a batter later on a Tim Lynch sacrifice fly to account for the other run.

"I'm real proud of the way our team grinded that out," Southern Miss coach Corky Palmer said. "We missed on some opportunities, but the storyline today was certainly the pitching behind Cord Cockrell."

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 9:07 PM with the headline "No. 13 Ole Miss powers past Ball State; Southern Miss blanks Michigan State."