Mizzou becomes 1st college team to win ABS challenge. Tigers were nearly flawless
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Missouri participated in college baseball’s debut of the ABS challenge system in 2026.
- Missouri went 7 for 8 on defensive ABS challenges, all initiated by Mateo Serna.
- Ole Miss made college baseball’s first ABS challenge, but their first-inning try failed.
They came into the 2026 SEC Tournament last in the conference, but the Missouri Tigers were part of college baseball history on Tuesday.
In the first game of the tournament against Ole Miss, the Tigers were nearly flawless as college baseball debuted its Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system.
With NCAA approval, the SEC has implemented ABS on an experimental basis during the league tournament in Hoover, Alabama. The system is similar to the one already widely used in the major leagues.
Each team gets three challenges and retains them if the call is overturned — but loses them if the original call is confirmed.
In Mizzou’s 10-8 upset win over 9-seed Ole Miss, the Tigers were 7 for 8 on ABS defensive challenges, all initiated by junior catcher Mateo Serna. They had an unsuccessful challenge from the plate; graduate right fielder Pierre Seals had a strike 3 call upheld in the ninth inning.
Behind the plate, Serna was masterful. He won his first five challenges, turning balls into strikes — including one for a strikeout to end the fifth inning.
On his lone unsuccessful challenge, in the bottom of the sixth, the pitch missed by eight-tenths of an inch.
Ole Miss will go down as the first team to make an ABS challenge in college baseball. Junior catcher Austin Fawley’s unsuccessful attempt came in the first inning.
Ole Miss ended the game with 10 total challenges; for reference, the MLB combined total is 12.
Serna was the only defensive player MU head coach Kerrick Jackson trusted with the green light to lodge challenges. When Serna wasn’t playing in the early spring, he umpired the team’s scrimmages.
He chuckled while telling the SEC Network hosts that anecdote after the game.
“I think that kind of helped me out a little bit, and I was just trusting it, to be honest,” Serna said with a smile.
Jackson was confident in Serna to get the job done.
“We know that he knows the zone, he works hard back there, he understands specifically what the umpire strike zone,” Jackson said. ”But then, with the ABS and understanding and seeing what that was, now you have a zone that is consistent. And so once he knows what the zone is, he’s going to be able to attack that zone and understand where those pitches are.”
Having recorded its first tournament win since 2017, the Tigers next face 8-seed Mississippi State on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.
This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 5:19 PM.
