Southern Miss
33-17, 17-9
Arkansas State
21-28-1, 7-18-1
Baseball Batters Arkansas State 19-3 Saturday to Win Sun Belt Series
5/11/2024 8:14:00 PM | Baseball
The Golden Eagles (33-17 overall, 17-9 Sun Belt) won for a season-best sixth consecutive time as they collected 19 hits, including four hits and four RBI from Slade Wilks and three hits and five RBI from Matthew Russo. Dalton McIntyre and Ozzie Pratt also collected three hits each, while Davis Gillespie and Carson Paetow added two hits apiece.
The visitors pulled away with six runs in each of the first two innings. The Golden Eagles jumped out in the first taking advantage of a pair of Red Wolves errors and three hits, with the last one a grand slam from Russo, to give Southern Miss a 6-0 advantage. It was the fourth home run of the year for Russo and third grand slam for the team.
The first seven batters reached base in the second inning, which included five-straight hits to open the frame, as Pratt knocked in a run with single, Gillespie knocked in run with a double before Paetow singled up the middle to drive in two more runs. Russo then added another RBI with a single before the final run came home on a grounded into double play.
Southern Miss extended the lead in the fifth on a three-run home run by Wilks to right-center, before tallying another run on a Red Wolves error and a sacrifice fly by Lawson Odom to make it 17-0.
After a solo home run from Dylan DeButy in the bottom of the inning to get A-State on the board for the first time, Wilks homered for the second time in the sixth, a solo shot, for his 12th homer of the year and 44th of his career which puts him in seventh place on the school's career home run chart.
The Red Wolves (21-28-1, 7-18-1) added their final two runs in the sixth as the first one came in on a double play before the final run scored RBI single from Jake Henry Williams.
Golden Eagle starter Niko Mazza (8-3) limited A-State to three runs on four hits and three walks with seven strikeouts over five-plus innings to earn the victory. Both Landen Payne and Ben Riley Flowers each tossed a scoreless frame.
A-State starter Max Charlton gave up 11 runs (six earned) on eight this with a walk and a strikeout over one-plus frame to suffer the loss and fall to 3-3.
The final game of the series is set to take place Sunday at 1 p.m.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Mazza, Niko (8-3)
L: Charlton, Max (3-3)
Batting:
2B: McIntyre, Dalton 1 ; Gillespie, Davis 1
HR: Wilks, Slade 2 ; Paetow, Carson 1 ; Russo, Matthew 1
RBI: Pratt, Ozzie 1 ; Wilks, Slade 4 ; Gillespie, Davis 1 ; Paetow, Carson 3 ; Monistere, Nick 1 ; Russo, Matthew 5 ; Odom, Lawson 1
SF: Odom, Lawson 1
Base Running:
RUNS: McIntyre, Dalton 2 ; Pratt, Ozzie 3 ; Wilks, Slade 4 ; Gillespie, Davis 3 ; Paetow, Carson 4 ; Monistere, Nick 2 ; Russo, Matthew 1
HBP: Russo, Matthew 1
Batting:
2B: French, Wil 1
HR: DeButy, Dylan 1
RBI: DeButy, Dylan 1 ; Hoskyn, John 1 ; Williams, Jake Henry 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Burris, Blake 1 ; Hager, Brandon 1 ; DeButy, Dylan 1
CS: French, Wil 1
HBP: French, Wil 1 ; Toler, Jared 1
