A close look at where Southern Miss stands after its Oxford Regional loss to FSU
The Southern Miss baseball team’s path to advance out of the Oxford Regional became much more difficult with a 5-2 loss to Florida State on Friday at Swayze Field.
Lost opportunities at the plate and a late power surge by FSU has USM in the loser’s bracket after the first day of competition in the NCAA tournament. The Golden Eagles stranded 10 runners and the Seminoles hit three homers in the Friday afternoon contest on the Ole Miss campus.
USM (37-20) out-hit FSU 9-7, but the Seminoles did a better job of making it count when they made contact.
USM coach Scott Berry pointed to the bottom of the third inning when Gabe Montenegro and Reed Trimble started things off with a pair of singles, but FSU starter Parker Messick rebounded to strike out three consecutive batters — Charlie Fischer, Christopher Sargent and Reece Ewing.
“We didn’t get enough two-out hits,” Berry said. “Look at the box, we leave 10 guys on.
“Florida State has power arms and you see it in their stats. They did a good job of moving righties and lefties (out of the bullpen), and controlling the game on that side of the ball. We just didn’t do enough in those situations to get runs in.”
USM’s starting pitching situation
The onus is now on senior right-hander Walker Powell to deliver for USM in Saturday’s 11 a.m. contest against Southeast Missouri State to keep the Golden Eagles alive.
If USM can win Saturday morning, redshirt sophomore lefty Drew Boyd would likely start on the mound for the Golden Eagles in another elimination contest at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
USM coach Scott Berry decided to go with usual No. 3 starter Ben Ethridge out of the bullpen on Friday — his second appearance in relief this season.
Ethridge gave up two runs on three, walking two and striking out one in 2 ⅓ innings.
“We were just trying to hold it there. Ben has been throwing well,” Berry said. “We wanted to keep it 3-2 at that point and not extend (starter Hunter Stanley). That was the decision by me and (pitching coach Christian Ostrander) to go to him and control the game at that point and try to win late.”
There was no such late production at the plate as USM stranded runners in every inning except the second and fifth innings when the Eagles were three up, three down.
“Myself included, we need to stop pressing,” USM designated hitter Charlie Fischer said. “When the pressure is on, we’re not creating opportunities. We’re not doing a good job of cashing in. We’re doing too much, looking for the perfect pitch. Something has to change.”
USM has recently shown that it’s capable of jumping out to an early lead, only to watch the advantage slip away either due to a poor outing of the bullpen or the hitters’ inability to produce in later innings.
Stanley (6-4) lasted six innings, giving up one earned run on four hits. He struck out six and walked two.
Messick (8-2) didn’t allow one earned run in six innings, striking out five and walking one.
“Going into the game we knew he’d have his stuff,” Fischer said of Messick. “We talked about our approach with (USM assistant Travis Creel). We did a good job early and attacked. We kind of took our foot off the gas pedal after the first inning and it cost us.”
Southern Miss fielding miscue costly
A pair of fielding errors by Florida State allowed USM to take a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but one crucial mistake in the field for USM in the sixth helped spark the FSU rally — a dropped fly ball by Ewing in right field.
Stanley had held FSU scoreless through five innings when Ewing mishandled a lazy fly ball off the bat of FSU leadoff man Tyler Martin, who advanced to second on the miscue.
“(Ewing) said he lost it at the last second in the sun,” Berry said.
The next man up, Logan Lacey, ripped an 0-2 offering well over the left field fence to tie the game at 2-2.
Stanley then walked Matheu Nelson, who then advanced to second on a pitch that got past USM catcher Blake Johnson.
The Eagles caught a break when Robby Martin lined into a double play for the first two outs of the inning, but Elijah Cabell gave FSU the lead at 3-2 when he reached across the plate to pull a ball over the 365-foot mark in left.
In the eighth inning, Nelson hit his 23rd home run of the season for a 2-run shot over the left field wall.
“It was a tough ball game against a good club,” FSU coach Mike Martin Jr. said. “Things didn’t go our way early, but we persevered and kept pushing. We had to have someone ignite us and we had quite a few that did that.”
FSU was set to play Ole Miss at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
Ole Miss 6, Southeast Missouri State 0
Another page in The Legend of Tim Elko was written Friday night as No. 1 seed Ole Miss baseball topped No. 4 seed Southeast Missouri, 6-3, to open Oxford Regional play.
The senior captain, playing on a torn right ACL, broke a scoreless tie in the third inning, launching a grand slam home run over the right field wall. He was one of eight Rebels with a hit on the night, including multi-hit nights from Kevin Graham, TJ McCants and Cael Baker. Baker scored a team-best two runs, while McCants and Peyton Chatagnier supplied the Rebels’ two RBI outside of Elko’s four.
On the mound, Derek Diamond turned in a solid start, allowing just two hits and one unearned run in 4.1 innings, which crossed after he had exited the game.
Jack Dougherty was solid in relief, yielding two runs, one earned, on four hits while striking out four and walking none over 3.0 innings. From there, Taylor Broadway tossed 1.2 perfect innings with three strikeouts as he picked up his 14th save of the season to claim sole possession of the Rebels’ single-season saves record.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 6:53 PM.
