Week 3 of the college baseball season featured several high-profile matchups between the SEC and ACC, while others played a lot of the best teams from other conferences in various tournaments.
Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina did their part in the SEC-ACC battles, while Ole Miss was really impressive in the Cambria College Classic.
Vanderbilt had a shaky start to the weekend, but finished it on a very high note with a no-hitter.
Elsewhere in the SEC, we had several teams sweep through the weekend playing some more tune-up games with just one weekend left before conference play begins.
SEC tops ACC in rivalry battles
Every year we get these great SEC-ACC battles in March pitting teams from the two best conferences together. The SEC won all three series this year, including Florida winning a top 25 battle over Miami.
The Gators showed why they're an Omaha-caliber team with dominant starting pitching and a ton of offense. Brandon Sproat, Hurston Waldrep, and Jac Caglianone combined to strike out 31 batters in 18 innings.
At the plate, Caglianone had a pair of home runs on Saturday while Wyatt Langford had 6 hits on the weekend, including 3 home runs.
The one area of weakness for the Gators is their bullpen, which gave up 9 earned runs in the final three innings of Saturday’s game – their only loss of the weekend.
South Carolina dropped Friday’s game to Clemson, but then bounced back to win the next two, including a highly entertaining game on Saturday in which the Gamecocks trailed 3-0 in the 6th and 7-3 in the 7th before ultimately winning 11-9.
Cole Messina had a big 3-run home run in the 7th on Saturday to give them the lead.
Gavin Casas had 2 home runs on Sunday, while James Hicks was great out of the bullpen throwing 5 scoreless innings to finish off the game.
Georgia’s starting pitching is beginning to take shape as Jaden Woods pitched 6 scoreless innings on Friday with 8 strikeouts in a win, while Liam Sullivan struck out 8 on Saturday in 5.1 innings.
Charlie Condon had a pair of 2-run homers on Saturday in Georgia’s big 16-6 win over the Jackets.
Let’s mix it up
Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss all participated in a couple of weekend tournaments facing top teams from other conferences.
Ole Miss had the most impressive weekend taking down Maryland, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Ethan Groff had a big weekend at the plate for Ole Miss picking up 7 hits, 1 double, 1 home run, 5 runs, and 8 RBI.
Jack Dougherty had a quality start on Friday and Grayson Saunier struckout 11 in 5 innings on Saturday.
Vanderbilt dropped their Friday matchup 5-3 to Nebraska, but then had some of the most exciting moments of the weekend in their next two games with a walk-off on Saturday and a no-hitter on Sunday.
RJ Schreck, who had 2 solo home runs in the loss on Friday, had the walk-off sac-fly on Saturday.
RJ Austin, who is quickly becoming one of the best players in the conference, had a pair of solo shots on Saturday.
Greysen Carter, Sam Hliboki, Ryan Ginther, and Nick Maldonado combined for the no-hitter on Sunday.
After getting beat badly by Louisville on Friday, Texas A&M bounced back to win their next two against Rice and Texas Tech.
The win over Tech was a 16-inning affair that went past midnight, bleeding into Monday morning. They scored a run in the 9th to tie it and 2 in the top of the 16th.
It was the A&M bullpen that deserves the credit as they pitched 10 scoreless innings to finish the game. Evan Aschenbeck tossed 4.2 perfect innings with 8 strikeouts.
Mississippi State was the only SEC team to have a losing weekend dropping games to Ohio State and Oklahoma before beating Cal on Sunday.
Amani Larry is the lone bright spot for the Bulldogs so far this year hitting .378 with 3 home runs, 4 doubles, and 7 stolen bases. He was 3-4 with a home run and 2 stolen bases in the win on Sunday.
Sweep ‘em up
Seven SEC teams had perfect weekends as these teams continue to gear up for conference play.
Tennessee blew through Gonzaga as Blake Burke led them at the plate with 6 hits in the first two games and 5 RBI. Chase Dollander and Chase Burns combined to allow just 2 earned runs in 12.1 innings with 19 strikeouts.
LSU took down Butler and Central Connecticut State over the weekend. Tommy White looks to be back to himself after the early season injury, smashing 2 home runs on Saturday and driving in 8 over the weekend.
Paul Skenes continues his dominance striking out 13 in 6 scoreless innings on Friday against Butler.
Arkansas might have had the most impressive sweep of the weekend over a Wright State team that is usually really solid. It was a number of bats for Arkansas who had good weekends, including Brady Slavens, Peyton Stovall, Jared Wegner, and Jace Bohrofen.
Alabama remains unbeaten on the season. Colby Shelton had a monster weekend with 5 home runs, including 2 grand slams, and he drove in 11 runs.
Ben Hess was really good on the mound Saturday pitching 5.2 scoreless innings allowing just 1 hit with 8 strikeouts.
Auburn swept Lipscomb, but it wasn’t that easy. Freshman sensation, Ike Irish, had a walk-off hit on Saturday. And on Sunday it took a 3-run homer from Bryson Ware in the 8th inning to give the Tigers a 4-3 win.
Both Kentucky and Missouri had their scheduled games on Friday postponed and played double-headers on Saturday against Indiana State and Texas Southern respectively.
Kentucky won all three games by a total of 4 runs, including a walk-off hit on Sunday by Jase Felker after being down 3-0 and 6-4. Ryan Waldschmidt was 4-4 in that game as well for the Wildcats.
Missouri had several offensive standouts in Hank Zeisler, Dalton Bargo, Juju Stevens, Luke Mann, Ross Lovich, and Justin Colon.
Stevens had a big 3-run home run in the sixth inning in the second game on Saturday to break a 5-5 tie in a game they ultimately won 8-7.
SEC Power Rankings Week 3
LSU
Florida
Tennessee
Ole Miss
Vanderbilt
Arkansas
South Carolina
Texas A&M
Alabama
Auburn
Missouri
Georgia
Mississippi State
Kentucky
Thanks for stopping by! Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram to keep up with all of our content!