Southern Miss
44-16
Army West Point
31-24
Southern Miss Opens NCAA Hattiesburg Regional with 2-0 Victory over Army West Point
6/3/2022 4:44:00 PM | Baseball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Tanner Hall limited Army West Point to four hits over eight innings in leading the No. 11 national seed Southern Miss past the Black Knights 2-0 Friday afternoon at Pete Taylor Park/Hill Denson Field in the opening game of the NCAA Hattiesburg Regional.
The Golden Eagles (44-16) opened their 18th regional and third NCAA Tournament at home – the first since 2017 - as they outhit Army (31-24) 7-4 in the game.
Hall retired the first 11 batters, which included six strikeouts at one point, en route to leading the Golden Eagles to their eighth shutout of the season. The sophomore from Zachary, La., retired the final seven batters he faced in the contest.
Hall, the Conference USA Pitcher of the Year and first-team Collegiate Baseball All-America selection, walked one and fanned nine to get the victory and improve to 9-2 on the year.
Landon Harper pitched a perfect ninth, with a strikeout, to earn his 12th save of the year.
The Golden Eagles, which left seven base runners on base over the first four innings, finally got on the board in the fifth.
With one out, Reece Ewing walked for the second time in the contest. Christopher Sargent, who along with Gabe Montenegro and Danny Lynch, had two hits including a double off the top of the left field wall to score Ewing for the first run of the game.
Southern Miss added its final run one frame later. Montenegro, who broke the school record for singles (239) with a pair in the contest, opened the inning with one to right. After a sacrifice bunt and strikeout, Dustin Dickerson's grounder to short was thrown low to first that could not be handled to allow Montenegro to score.
Army starter Connelly Early kept the Golden Eagles off kilter for much of the game as he gave up both runs (one earned) on seven hits and four walks with eighth strikeouts over six innings to suffer the loss and fall to 7-4.
Southern Miss will now play the winner of Kennesaw State/LSU Saturday at 6 p.m., in the winner's bracket.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Hall, Tanner (9-2)
L: EARLY, Connelly (7-4)
S: Harper, Landon (12)
Batting:
2B: CERRUTO, Cam 1
Base Running:
CS: MANESIS, Nick 1
Batting:
2B: Sargent, Christopher 1
RBI: Sargent, Christopher 1
SH: Johnson, Blake 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Ewing, Reece 1 ; Montenegro, Gabe 1
SB: Montenegro, Gabe 1
CS: Dickerson, Dustin 1
