Southern Miss rallies to top Florida State in the Oxford Regional. Next up, Ole Miss.
After struggling through a spate of late-game collapses recently, the Southern Miss baseball team was the team who mounted a furious rally in an elimination game Sunday in the Oxford Regional.
Behind a sterling performance in relief by sophomore lefty Ryan Och, USM eliminated Florida State 7-4 with Hurston Waldrep registering the final five outs for the save.
The Golden Eagles advance to the title round of the Oxford Regional, setting up a Sunday night contest against in-state rival Ole Miss.
USM (39-20) will have to beat the Rebels twice at Swayze Field to advance to a Super Regional.
Och, who improved to 8-0, gave up just one hit over 4 ⅔ innings, striking out a career high of 11 batters and walking two.
The lefty’s fastball had tremendous run away from right-handed hitters, leading to 23 swing and misses by FSU batters.
FSU coach Mike Martin Jr. said the transition from left-handed starter Drew Boyd, who relies on his change-up, to the hard-throwing Och presented problems for the Seminoles.
“It’s a good strategy,” Martin said. “You talk about spring rate and both guys coming from the same side. We’ve done some of that this year.
“They did a really good job. They were tough. They put the bat on the ball, did some good things. They were fundamentally sound and well taught. You see why they’re a Top 20 team and a (potential) host site a couple of weeks ago.”
Och tossed 86 pitches for his longest outing of the season. His previous high was 76 in the C-USA tournament against Louisiana Tech last week.
“We knew he was a fastball heavy pitcher,” FSU catcher Matheu Nelson said. “We were trying to sit on it a little, but he had a little run and ride to it. We were a little bit late. He did his job, held up his part. He did a great job out there today.”
It was the bottom third of the lineup that provided the spark that USM needed Sunday afternoon with sophomore second baseman Will McGillis putting in one of the best games of his career.
His solo homer in the seventh tied the game at 4-4 and he finished 3-for-4 with a double, an RBI and three runs scored.
Sophomore catcher Blake Johnson showed some of the pop he put on display during his high school days at Gulfport, hitting a 2-run homer in the fifth that cut the FSU lead to 4-3 and helped spark the rally.
It was Reece Ewing, who had struggled lately, who came up with a 1-out single to plate the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth to make it 5-4.
The Golden Eagles then caught a break when Danny Lynch sent a hard hit drive up the middle, and a throw to first by FSU reliever Jonah Anderson missed the mark and went into right field.
Chris Sargent crossed home on the play, giving the Golden Eagles the 6-4 lead.
Sargent then pushed the USM advantage to 7-4 in the ninth on an RBI single to left.
Boyd got the start for USM, and didn’t quite have his best stuff. He allowed four runs on six hits in 2 ⅔ innings. He struck out one and walked one.
Boyd’s struggles forced USM pitching coach Christian Ostrander to go to Och with two out in the bottom of the third.
USM was set to start freshman right-hander Blake Wehunt (1-2, 11.25) against Ole Miss in Sunday night’s game. Ole Miss is going with right-hander Drew McDaniel (5-1, 5.14).
This story was originally published June 6, 2021 at 5:43 PM.
