BATON ROUGE - Ole Miss evened up the series Saturday night behind a masterful performance from Freshman southpaw Doug Nikhazy. The Rebels lefty fired 6.1 innings and allowed one run as No. 13 Ole Miss took down No. 9 LSU 5-1 in game two at Alex Box Stadium.

Nikhazy improved to 6-3 on the year after limiting LSU to five hits, walking one and striking out four. Meanwhile Eric Walker dropped to 4-4 on the season after getting tagged for four runs on three hits in four innings. 

Walker allowed a couple of early home runs which proved to be the difference. In the second Left fielder Thomas Dillard crushed a solo-shot (10th) off Walker to make it 1-0 Rebels. Then in the fourth Kevin Grahman hit his sixth home run of the year to right field to extend the Rebels’ lead to 4-0.

With the win, Ole Miss improves to 31-17 and 14-9 in the SEC while LSU falls to 30-17, 14-9 in the league.

The rubber match between the Tigers and the Rebels is slated for Sunday at 2:30 p.m. CT in The Box. The game will be televised on ESPN2, and fans can listen to the game on the LSU Sports Radio Network, including 98.1 FM in Baton Rouge.