Southern Miss
Marshall
Baseball Drops 7-6 Game to Marshall
4/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 4, 2009
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Southern Miss saw their six game winning steak come to an end as they fell in Conference USA action 7-6 to Marshall Saturday afternoon at Pete Taylor Park.
"Today's game was a lot like we have played all season, we made a couple of mistakes and they hurt us," head coach Corky Palmer said. "We did not match up with their starting pitcher today. It is a disappointing loss and I give our guys credit for making a late run but Marshall is a tough team."
Todd McInnis suffered his second loss of the season working 5.1 innings, allowing five earned runs on seven hits. Jonathan Johnston was outstanding in relief keeping Southern Miss in the game late, working 2.2 innings allowing only two hits and striking out two.
Marshall (13-17, 4-4) starting pitcher Dan Straily picked up the win working seven innings allowing sin runs, four of which were earned while striking out five.
Taylor Walker led the Southern Miss offense with two hits and two runs score, including his first home run as a Golden Eagle in the third inning. James Ewing continued to swing a hot bat with two more hits today and a run scored and Tyler Koelling added in two hits.
Marshall struck for the games first runs in the top of the first inning as Josh Valle and Thor Meeks both collected RBI singles to put the Herd up 2-0.
Southern Miss (19-10, 5-3) answered in the bottom of the second inning with a little help from the Marshall defense. James Ewing singled up the middle to start the rally and Kameron Brunty followed with a line drive to centerfield that Marshall centerfielder Ben Jerevicius misplayed allowing Ewing to score and Brunty to advance all the way to third.
Joey Archer then followed with a deep fly ball that was dropped by the Marshall left fielder Rhett Stafford dropped which allowed Brunty to score and Archer hustled all the way to third base. Kyle Maxie picked up an RBI on a soft ground out allowing Archer to score from third and put Southern Miss up 3-2.
Taylor Walker ripped his first career home run in bottom of the fourth inning, a solo shot to left field to put the Golden eagles up 4-2.
Victor Gomez tied the game at four in the top of the fifth with a two-run home run over the left field wall.
Eric Semeniuk singled through a drawn in infield allowing Rhett Stafford to score and put Marshall on top 5-4 in the top of the sixth inning.
Marshall added two unearned runs in the top of the seventh inning, that proved to be the difference in the game. The Herd loaded the bases with one out and Jonathan Johnston coaxed two ground balls but the second one, off the bat of Semeniuk, Taylor Walker over threw second base which allowed two runs to cross the plate and put Marshall up 7-4.
Southern Miss was able to get those two runs right back in the bottom of the seventh inning as Tyler Koelling and Taylor Walker both singled to start the rally before Brian Dozier doubled down the left field line to score Koelling. Walker came in to score the sixth run of the game for Southern Miss on a wild pitch, but 7-6 is as close as the Golden Eagles would get.
The two teams will square off in the rubber game of the series tomorrow morning with an 11:00 a.m. first pitch.
-southernmiss.com-
