University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Golden Eagles Win 8-4, Complete Sweep At Memphis
4/20/2003 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Golden Eagles Win 8-4, Complete Sweep At Memphis
HATTIESBURG, Miss. ? Southern Miss completed its first sweep of a Conference USA road series since last season, with an 8-4 Sunday afternoon win at Memphis (12-27, 4-14), a victory that pushed the Golden Eagle record to 30-10 and kept Head Coach Corky Palmer's team safely in first place in the C-USA regular season race.
The Eagles swept Charlotte on the road in early April last season, and the sweep over the Tigers was the first for Southern Miss since a three-game sweep in Memphis during the 1997 season.
The Eagles also continued to demonstrate that scoring runs is important. Southern Miss is 23-0 this season when the team scores at least seven runs.
The three weekend victories pushes the Southern Miss record to 30-10, and 14-4 in Conference USA action. That makes this year's team the fastest to reach 30 victories in Southern Miss baseball history. The Eagles now also have won 30 or more games in 17 of the last 18 seasons, and will continue the season Apr. 22-23 with a pair of 6:30 p.m., games at Mississippi State. Following those two games, Southern Miss will have league series with UAB (Apr. 25-27), East Carolina (May 2-4), South Florida (May 9-11) and Houston (May 15-17) remaining on the schedule, along with a single non-league game against Southeastern Louisiana.
In today's game at Nat Buring Stadium, the Eagles saw the Tigers go in front for the second time in the weekend series with a single run in the bottom of the first inning. It stayed that way until the top of the third when the Eagles scored what would prove to be enough runs to win the game, by putting four on the board. Jarrett Hoffpauir homered to tie the score at one, Beau Griffin walked, Matt Shepherd singled to center, and Carlos Velasquez homered to left center.
Memphis cut the margin to one run with two runs in the bottom of the third inning, only to see Southern Miss counter quickly with three more runs in the top of the fifth, when Shepherd walked, and Jeff Cook homered to drive in two runs. Then, with two out, Clint King homered for the third run of the inning. Memphis managed to add one more run in the sixth inning and Southern Miss matched that with Cook's second home run of the game, in the ninth inning.
The two home runs for Cook were his 15th and 16th of the season, matching his total for all of last season. He also is tied for second, with Tommy Davis, on the career home run list, with 43, just two behind all-time leader Fred Cooley. Cook also has 258 career hits and is fourth on that career list, his 171 runs scored is good for third place on that list, his 178 RBIs is third on the career list and his 168 career singles in sixth best all-time.
Brad Willcutt also had his 17th double of the season, matching his total for all of last season.
Southern Miss outhit the Tigers 12-8, including five home runs, the two by Cook and one each for Velasquez, King and Hoffpauir. Willcutt, Jason Lowery and Hoffpauir all had two hits each. Kevin House was the only Tiger with more than one hit.
