‘Something I’ll never forget.’ Inside USM baseball’s dramatic sweep of the Cajuns
Reed Trimble has developed a flair for the dramatic in his short time at Southern Miss, and he came through again Sunday.
The freshman from Northwest Rankin stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th inning against Louisiana-Lafayette and crushed a 2-0 fastball for a grand slam to give the Golden Eagles a 6-3 walk-off victory at Pete Taylor Park.
USM (9-5) completed the sweep of the weekend series against the Ragin’ Cajuns and extended its winning streak to five games. ULL (9-8) dropped its fifth straight game.
“I’m feeling really good right now,” said Southern Miss coach Scott Berry. “I felt like our guys competed really well and deserved to win and sweep the series.”
The game-winning home run was the third hit of the game for Trimble, who came into the weekend as the Golden Eagles’ leading hitter, and he also contributed a key defensive play that saved a run.
“I’m just trying to hit good pitches, and not swing at pitches out of the zone,” said Trimble, who batted .275 in 40 at-bats last season, with 12 RBIs. “I’m trying to work the count and see when they’re going to make a mistake then take advantage of it.”
Trimble started the day the right way for Southern Miss in the top of the first inning.
ULL leadoff hitter Tyler Robertson opened the game with a single then stole second. The throw from USM catcher Blake Johnson was high, but Trimble charged the ball and threw out Robertson at third.
Ben Ethridge delivers for Southern Miss
Golden Eagle starter Ben Ethridge then got two strikeouts to get out of the inning unscathed.
“He’s a very talented player, with a high top-end,” Berry said of Trimble. “That would have been a runner at third with nobody out. So, that’s a situation where he saved a run.”
With one out in the bottom of the first inning, Trimble, a switch-hitter batting left-handed, bunted to the opposite side and raced all the way to third when the throw to first base sailed over the head of ULL’s Brandon Talley.
Charlie Fischer followed with a single to drive in Trimble and give Southern Miss a 1-0 lead.
“I told Coach Berry before the game, that if the third baseman or first baseman were playing really back, I was going to try to lay one down,” Trimble said.
“They had been playing pretty even with the back Friday and Saturday, but (ULL third baseman Ben Fitzgerald) he was playing off the line a little bit for the shift, so I tried to just put one down the third base line.”
And that’s the way it stayed, as Ethridge and Lafayette starter Carter Robinson matched zeroes for the next four innings.
“A lot of early takes were on the curveball and sliders, and I was able to come back with the fastball or the change-up to get strikeouts,” said Ethridge, a freshman from West Lauderdale.
The Ragin’ Cajuns finally got to Ethridge in the top of the sixth, however, when Robertson smacked a one-out double down the leftfield line, took third when Ethridge’s pickoff attempt got into the outfield, and he scored on a groundout to shortstop.
But Ethridge got out of further trouble when Ben Fitzgerald was thrown out at second trying to steal after getting a single.
“I made that mistake, when nobody was there,” Ethridge said. “I just had to keep working at it and try to get the next guy out without allowing them to score. Unfortunately, they were able to score, but I was able to get out of it.”
Ethridge allowed just four hits, struck out nine and did not walk a batter. In fact, the only walk Southern Miss surrendered in the game was an intentional pass issued in the ninth.
USM had an opportunity to score in the fifth when Dustin Dickerson led off by reaching on an error after bunting in front of the plate.
Gabe Montenegro sacrificed Dickerson to second, and a wild pitch put Dickerson on third. But Trimble popped out behind first base and Fischer struck out looking to end the threat.
The Golden Eagles had a chance to end the game in the bottom of the ninth, getting runners to second and third, but Trimble just missed getting a ball down on a flare to right field for the final out of the inning.
“We missed on some opportunities, but we built innings all weekend,” Berry said. “There weren’t a lot of runs these last two games, but we did some good things to put ourselves in position to score. That’s all you can ask for, to have opportunities.”
Extra-innings for Conference USA teams this season are being played under the international tiebreaker rule, where each half-inning starts with a runner at second base. Berry said he chose to use it this weekend so his team could start getting used to the rule if the situation arose.
“Given the way both teams were swinging and the way both bullpens were working, we might still be out there playing,” Berry said. “The reason it was put in for our league is because we’re playing four-game (weekend) series, with a doubleheader on Saturdays. So, I wanted up to use it and start getting ready for how to play with it in effect.”
USM gets big innings from bullpen
After Golden Eagle relievers Tyler Stuart and Ryan Och combined for three scoreless innings out of the bullpen, Och was unable to keep ULL off the scoreboard in the top of the 10th after getting a pair of strikeouts to start the inning.
Pinch-hitter Jonathan Brandon delivered a run-scoring single, and back-to-back singles sent Berry turning back to the bullpen for true freshman right-hander Tanner Hall.
“It was the matchup,” said Berry. “We felt like he could get under the bat with the ball, especially right-on-right. He has shown an ability to get the job done at an early age. He was really the best option out of the bullpen in that situation.”
Hall (1-1) gave up a wild pitch to allow the runners to move up to second and third but got Robertson to hit a fly-ball to right to keep it a one-run game.
Trimble, as the last batter in the previous inning, started the bottom of the 10th at second base and he went to third on a fielder’s choice, beating a throw from ULL shortstop Bobby Lada, and scored on a wild pitch.
However, USM was unable to score, despite getting runners to second and third with only one out, and the game went to the 11th.
Once again, the Ragin’ Cajuns took a lead, when Robertson scored after taking third on a leadoff single and coming home on a ground ball to first. But Dickerson snagged a sharp fly at shortstop and threw back to second for a double play to end the inning.
The bottom of the 11th began with Michael Wein being sacrificed to third. Dickerson reached on a single to shallow rightfield, but Wein was unable to move up, although Dickerson took second on the throw from the outfield.
Montenegro was hit by a pitch to load the bases, setting the stage for Trimble’s game-winning heroics.
Trimble took two high pitches from ULL right-hander Jacob Schultz (0-1), the sixth pitcher to work for the Ragin’ Cajuns, then unloaded on a belt-high fastball that sailed well over the fence in right-centerfield.
“I saw a fastball,” Trimble said. “He wasn’t landing any off-speed stuff, so that wasn’t a factor in my mind.
“I knew when I got to 2-0, that he didn’t want to go to 3-0 to walk me and get to the 3-hole batter. So, I knew he was going to come back with something in the zone. I put a good swing on it, and the wind did the rest. It was surreal; something I’ll never forget.”
Although the game was decided at the plate, it was the Southern Miss pitching that ruled all three games of the series.
“They pitched awesome the whole weekend,” Berry said.
“Our guys being able to pitch out of some things, and pitch around some things, so that we only gave up the one run instead of the crooked number. It’s a lot easier at home to come back and win when you’re only down one run than it is when you’re down two or three runs.”
Southern Miss will travel to Mobile, Alabama on Tuesday for the second time this season to face South Alabama. Berry said he would decide on his pitcher for Tuesday after talking with pitching coach Christian Ostrander.
The Golden Eagles will then return home next weekend to face Missouri State in the final non-conference series of the season.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 8:09 PM.