NCAA Baseball Tournament 2013 update: 2-seeds faring better so far on Saturday

After a Friday full of upsets, it’s been a good Saturday for the two-seeds so far, as Ole Miss, Clemson and Arkansas all avoided elimination. Here’s a rundown of all of Day 2’s early scores:

It was closer for much of the game than the Rebels would have liked, but a big eighth inning advanced them past Binghampton, who drops out of the tournament. A pair of singles and a host of walks and errors put a four-spot on the board in the eighth, just an inning after Binghampton had rallied to tie the game at two. The bad news for the Rebels? They’ll have to go the rest of the way without ace Bobby Wahl, who gave up two runs through seven innings in a solid outing.

The chance of a hotly anticipated South Carolina-Clemson bout stays alive for now, as the Tigers overcame an early one-run deficit to power through Saint Louis. Five of Clemson’s runs came off the bat of Steve Wilkerson, who hammered back-to-back homers in the third and fourth innings. They’ll play the loser of South Carolina-Liberty on Sunday.

Any doubt about this one was removed with a bases-loaded triple in the eighth inning that put Lafayette up by seven runs. The Ragin’ Cajuns not only sport one of the best monikers in the nation, but one of the most potent offenses, and they finally got things going after scoring only two runs in their loss to Sam Houston State on Friday. The country’s leader in home runs did it without the long ball Saturday, instead using extra-base hits to drive in seven of their runs. Jackson State is two-and-through.

Wichita State scored nine runs in a losing effort Friday against Kansas State. They mustered only one against Arkansas ace Ryne Stanek, who allowed only two hits over 7 ⅓ IP and knocked the Shockers out of the tournament. The Razorback offense was typically underwhelming, but you don’t need to score much with a guy like Stanek on the mound. Colby Suggs was pumping gas in the upper 90s during his ninth-inning save, his 13th of the year.