Dom Decker scored the tying run for Ole Miss in Game 2 of the Auburn Super Regional, and he did it after taking a pitch off his body and leaving the batter's box with blood on his left knee. The Rebels were tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning when Judd Utermark ripped an RBI double that brought two runners home and pushed Decker across the plate on a head-first slide.
That sequence mattered because Ole Miss had already won the first game of the super regional, putting the Rebels one win from the College World Series. In a tight NCAA tournament game, Decker's run kept Ole Miss level with Auburn and preserved the path that had opened with the opener the day before.
The play also carried a blunt kind of grit that numbers alone do not show. Decker was hurt when he was hit by a pitch, went to the ground in the batter's box, and still found his way home when Utermark delivered. The injury did not keep him off the bases, and it did not keep him from scoring when Ole Miss needed the run most.
What remains now is simple: Ole Miss is still one win away from the College World Series after Game 2 of the Auburn Super Regional. The Rebels had already taken the first game, and Decker's bloody slide to home kept them in striking distance of the finish line.
