Season-High Five Home Runs Lifts Eagles in 9-4 Series-Opening Win at LA Tech

Friday, March 8

Ruston, La.

6 p.m.

Southern Miss

8-5

Louisiana Tech

12-2

Southern Miss

Louisiana Tech

Season-High Five Home Runs Lifts Eagles in 9-4 Series-Opening Win at LA Tech

3/8/2024 10:20:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

RUSTON, La. – Southern Miss belted a season-high five home runs and Niko Mazza gave up just one run over five innings to help lead the Golden Eagles to a 9-4 victory over Louisiana Tech Friday night at Pat Patterson Park/J.C. Love Field.

The Golden Eagles (9-5) snapped a two-game winning streak as they hit five home runs in a contest for the first time since at ULM on May 13, 2023. After opening the season with 12-straight victories, LA Tech lost for the second consecutive time to fall to 12-2. Game two of the series is set for Saturday at 2 p.m.

Dalton McIntyre, Slade Wilks and Billy Butler, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 batters in the Golden Eagle order, each got three hits as the visitors managed 12 in the contest.

A three-run first gave the Golden Eagles the early advantage and one that they did not relinquish for the remainder of the contest. After a strikeout, Monistere homered to left, his third of the season, before he was followed with a single by Wilks and a two-run homer by Butler, his first of the game, which went 410 feet.

Mazza struggled in the opening inning by allowing a leadoff hit by pitch which was followed by a pair of singles. After an RBI fielder's choice, the junior right-hander got a strikeout and a ground out to end the threat.

That was the only run Mazza surrendered over five innings as he scattered six hits and a walk, along with another hit by pitch, with seven strikeouts to garner the victory and improve to 3-0. In four starts in 2024, Mazza has at least seven strikeouts in each of his outings.

Southern Miss extended the lead to 5-1 in the third with a two-run homer by Wilks to straightaway cente, his third, and then got an opposite field long ball from Dalton MyIntyre one frame later, just inside the left field fair pole for his first of the year, to make the score 6-1.

The Bulldogs added a run off reliever Kros Sivley with a Kasten Furr RBI double to cut the gap in the sixth, but Golden Eagles added two more runs in the seventh on Butler's second home run that hit the lights in left field and measured 434 feet, for his team-leading fourth of the year. He was the first Golden Eagle to hit a pair of homers in a game since Dustin Dickerson did it at Auburn on June 3, last season. Wilks then followed a Monistere double with a ground ball that was fielded at second but thrown wildly to first which allowed Monistere to score Southern Miss' final run in the eighth.

LA Tech collected two runs in the ninth, one of which was unearned off McCarty English, but the Golden Eagles held on for the series-opening win.

Reed Smith, the first of five Bulldog pitchers suffered the loss and fell to 0-1, after giving up five runs on five hits with two strikeouts over 2 1/3 innings.