Southern Miss
16-10, 0
Troy
20-9, 0
Big Innings, Solid Relief Pitching Lift Eagles to 13-3 Series Victory over Troy Sunday
4/2/2023 4:48:00 PM | Baseball
The Golden Eagles won their second-straight league series as they improved to 16-10 overall and 5-4 in the Sun Belt. The team returns home Tuesday when they entertain Southeastern Louisiana in a 6 p.m. contest.
Down 3-0 in the fifth, the Golden Eagles used a pair of walks and an error to load the bases with one out. Matthew Etzel drove in the first run with a sacrifice fly. After Dickerson knocked in a run with a single, Wilks blasted a three-run homer to right. The designated hitter homered in every game of the series and gave the Golden Eagles a lead that they did not relinquish for the remainder of the contest. It was his team-leading 10th homer of the year.
The visitors then added a run in the eighth when Rodrigo Montenegro plated Dickerson on a bases-loaded double play, before Southern Miss exploded with a season-tying best scoring inning in the ninth.
Southern Miss sent 12 batters to the plate in the final frame and got its first run on an RBI single from Creek Robertson. Dickerson then knocked in the second run with a sacrifice fly, before Ewing banged off the big right field wall with a two-run double.
Ewing scored one batter later on a single from Montenegro, before Carson Paetow and Danny Lynch ended with RBI singles of their own to complete the scoring.
The Golden Eagles tied a season-high for hits with 15.
As for pitching, Isaiah Rhodes came into the game for Niko Mazza in the third and went two scoreless innings, allowing two walks and fanning three. Billy Oldham then scattered three hits, two of which coming in the ninth, and did not walk a batter to go along with seven strikeouts to finish the contest for the visitors.
Rhodes earned the victory and improved to 1-1, while Oldham registered his first save.
The Trojans (21-8 overall, 5-4 Sun Belt) initially jumped out with three runs in the first frame. Kole Myers opened the bottom of the frame with an opposite field home run on the first pitch he saw down the left field line and Caleb Bartolero added a two-run double later in the frame for the early advantage.
Grayson Stewart, the starter of five Trojan pitchers in the contest, went five-plus innings and gave up five unearned runs on four hits with two walks and five strikeouts to suffer the loss and fall to 3-2.
Nine of the 10 Golden Eagles that had plate appearances in the contest registered base hits.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Rhodes, Isaiah (1-1)
L: Stewart, Grayson (3-2)
S: Oldham, Billy (1)
Batting:
2B: Dickerson, Dustin 1 ; Ewing, Reece 1 ; Lynch, Danny 1
HR: Wilks, Slade 1
RBI: Etzel, Matthew 1 ; Dickerson, Dustin 2 ; Wilks, Slade 3 ; Ewing, Reece 2 ; Montenegro, Rodrigo 1 ; Paetow, Carson 1 ; Lynch, Danny 1 ; Robertson, Creek 1
SF: Etzel, Matthew 1 ; Dickerson, Dustin 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Etzel, Matthew 1 ; Dickerson, Dustin 2 ; Wilks, Slade 1 ; Ewing, Reece 1 ; Montenegro, Rodrigo 1 ; Russo, Matthew 2 ; Paetow, Carson 1 ; Lynch, Danny 2 ; Robertson, Creek 2
Batting:
2B: Bartolero, Caleb 2
HR: Myers, Kole 1
RBI: Myers, Kole 1 ; Bartolero, Caleb 2
Base Running:
RUNS: Myers, Kole 1 ; Mock, Kyle 1 ; Lewis, Shane 1
SB: Mock, Kyle 1
HBP: Mock, Kyle 1
