University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Baseball Eagles Complete Sweep at Louisiana Tech, 13-4
2/29/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
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Complete Game Statistics
Baseball Eagles Complete Sweep at Louisiana Tech, 13-4
RUSTON, La. - The final score may have read 13-4, but, in reality it wasn't quite that easy, as Southern Miss completed a weekend baseball sweep of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs at Love Field here Sunday afternoon.
The victory pushed Southern Miss' record to 6-1, while Tech dropped to 5-8. Southern Miss will entertain Louisiana Monroe for single games Tuesday and Wednesday, with the Tuesday game starting at 6:30 p.m., and the Wednesday game at 3 p.m. The Eagles then will return to Louisiana where they will play in the Cox Communication/ESPN Lake Area Classic in Lake Charles, La., along with host McNeese State and Indiana State and Oklahoma State.
In Sunday's final game at Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss led from inning No. 1, when Head Coach Corky Palmer and his team put three runs on the board in the top of the first. Matt Shepherd and Marc Maddox both walked, and Jarrett Hoffpauir's double to left chased Shepherd home and sent Maddox to third. Maddox scored from there on Brad Willcutt's sacrifice fly to right, and Hoffpauir advanced to third, from where he scored on another sacrifice fly, this one by Carlos Velasquez.
After the Bulldogs got one run back in the bottom of the first, USM scored a single run in the third, and Tech pulled closer with two in the bottom of the third and then tied the score at 3-all with a single run in the fourth. It stayed that way until Southern Miss scored single runs in the top of both the seventh and eighth innings, and then broke the game open with seven more in the top of the ninth.
In that big ninth inning, Southern Miss sent 13 batters to the plate, collected seven runs on six hits and left three runners stranded.
For the day, Golden Eagle hitters roughed up six Louisiana Tech pitchers for 13 hits, 13 runs, a dozen RBIs, and 11 walks. Hoffpauir led Southern Miss with four hits, including a double, and drove in three runs while also scoring three. Shepherd and Velasquez each had two hits, accounted for two and three RBIs, respectively, and both scored twice.
While Tech was using six pitchers, Southern Miss also went through four. Starter Josh Grant lasted just 1.2 innings while giving up a run on four hits and walking two. Patrick Ezell went 3.1 innings, Ray Antonelli 1.0 and John Nicholas 3.0. Antonelli got credit for the victory to run his record to 2-0, and Nicholas earned his first save of the season.
Tech's second pitcher, Matt Lacy, who went 1.1 innings, was charged with the loss. He's 0-1.
A crowd of 543 watched the two-hour, 50-minute game.
