Walker Powell delivers as he steps into Friday night role for Southern Miss baseball

Walker Powell has been the workhorse for Southern Miss baseball for much of his career as a Golden Eagle, starting 16 games in each of the past two seasons.

Friday, in his fourth start of his senior season, Powell displayed the kind of grit that has made him the Golden Eagles’ ace, going seven strong innings and the offense backed him up with timely hits in an 11-4 victory over Little Rock at Pete Taylor Park.

An announced crowd of 3,667 on a chilly night saw USM improve to 10-3 in the first of a three-game weekend series against the Trojans. Little Rock dropped to 8-7.

Powell, now 3-0 for the season, weathered a rocky start as UALR scored three runs in the top of the first inning, helped by two Golden Eagle errors. The Trojans showed an attack mode early, as five of the eight batters in the inning jumped on the first pitch they saw.

“They’re definitely a team that’s going to get a lot of swings off,” Powell said. “They ambushed a bunch of first-pitch fastballs, so I had to land the off-speed pitch earlier in the count to keep them off-balance.”

With the bases loaded, though, the Southern Miss defense righted itself, getting a inning-ending double play, and the Golden Eagles immediately went to work at the plate.

USM scored two runs in the bottom of the first, as Little Rock made two errors of their own. Sophomore first baseman Will McGillis drove in a run on a botched double-play ball to narrow the margin to 3-2.

Southern Miss took the lead for good in the second inning, when freshman Andrew Stanley drew a leadoff walk and scored on Dustin Dickerson’s run-scoring trip. Dickerson trotted home with the go-ahead run on a ground ball to second off the bat of freshman Reed Trimble.

“That’s huge for a pitcher,” Powell said. “The last thing you want to do is give up some runs, then your offense goes three-up, three-down. These guys know that, and they’re good hitters, so they do a good job backing us up.”

Powell breezed the rest of the way, going seven full innings, never giving Little Rock much chance to string hits together. The only other run Powell allowed was a one-out solo home run by Kale Emshoff in the fifth.

“A lot of (Powell’s) rough start was just us defensively,” USM coach Scott Berry said. “We don’t make some plays there, and things just kind of snowballed.

“But after that inning, Walker started getting the breaking ball over. I don’t think he had that going in the first inning, but he had a good breaking ball from that point on.”

Powell, whose previous three starts were on Saturdays, was moved to Friday after sophomore Gabe Shepard was scratched due to some tendinitis in his right (throwing) shoulder.

Berry said Shepard got a cortisone shot on Monday, and he doesn’t expect Shepard to miss much playing time.

“He actually threw today, and said he felt fantastic,” said Berry. “But we wanted to give it some time to fully heal. He should be ready to go next week, but we’re going to be cautious with him and if he’s not 100 percent, we’ll sit him out one more week. But’s it’s not serious.”

The Golden Eagles made it 5-3 in the third inning, scoring after two were out. Sophomore Charlie Fischer drew a two-out walk and redshirt freshman Fisher Norris smacked a double into the gap in right-centerfield.

Norris came into the game batting just .182, but had two RBIs on two hits, including a key single in the sixth, when USM broke the game open with five runs.

“I felt a little better tonight,” Norris said. “I’ve been working with the coaches this past week on staying back in the box. I got some pitches to hit, and I was able to barrel them up.

“I think this being my first year out here, I’ve been a little anxious. But I feel like I’m settling in a little bit. I had a good fall, much better than last year, and it’s good to know that it’s turning over to this year.”

The Golden Eagles chased Trojan starter Eli Sievert (1-2) in the third, but reliever Cole Evans looked sharp through the fourth and fifth innings.

But in the sixth, Evans lost command of the strike zone and the Golden Eagles made him pay.

Stanley led off with a walk, then after an out, junior Gabe Montenegro reached on an infield error. Evans got a strikeout for the second out of the inning, and the Trojans elected to walk senior Matthew Guidry.

That strategy backfired, as McGillis and Lynch both walked, each driving in a run. Fischer had the big blow, a two-run single, and Norris added another RBI on a single up the middle.

The Golden Eagles only had five hits in the game, but they all produced runs, an efficiency that pleased Berry.

“Obviously, we’d have liked to have had more (hits) tonight,” Berry said. “There were some opportunities where we needed some hits that we didn’t get any. But I think in the sixth, we scored with two out, and that’s important, because that’s a back breaker for the other team.”

Lynch drove in another run in the eighth after Guidry walked for the fourth time in the game, the first Golden Eagle to do that in nearly three years, but Lynch was ruled out on an appeal for failing to touch first base.

“Sometimes, you don’t hit the ball a lot, so you have to find other ways to win,” said Berry.

“I’m hoping Fisher has started to come around. He probably hit the ball in the spring better than anybody coming back from Christmas, but he’s been slow to start the season. Hopefully, he’s starting to get a little more comfortable.”

The two teams were set to play a second game Saturday with freshman right-hander Ben Etheridge getting his first weekend start. Sunday’s game is set for 1 p.m. with Chandler Best getting the start on the mound.