Southern Miss baseball’s new secret weapon helps Golden Eagles rally to win regional
Needing a spark in the first game of Sunday’s losers’ bracket doubleheader, Southern Miss turned to the cooler of blue Powerade.
It wasn’t the electrolytes the Golden Eagle dugout was looking for, though. It was the tool used to mix the drink before each contest: a long, yellow paddle.
“It was just something our athletic trainer uses for the Powerade,” designated hitter and designated paddle-carrier Charlie Fischer said Monday. “We were playing Kennesaw State and the bats weren’t really there at the time.”
In the middle of a sweltering Sunday afternoon above the rubber pellet turf of Hill Denson Field, the bats were, indeed, faltering.
The Golden Eagles were staring at zero in their own run column and failing to give a laboring Hunter Riggins any run support.
Until the sixth inning.
Dustin Dickerson brought in a run and then an error scored another. The Eagles answered a ninth-inning run from the Owls with one of their own to force extras. That’s where regional MVP Christopher Sargent drove home the winning run and kept USM alive.
The sudden burst of runs arrived around the same time the paddle appeared on the steps of the dugout, perhaps not coincidentally. But if the umps that day had their way, the paddle would have had a short life as a rally prop.
“The ump actually told (Gillentine) to put it down, that it was ‘causing harm to the game,’” Fischer said. “I was like, ‘no, screw that. We’re going to pick it up and wave it around,’ as long as we were respectful. We started hitting and ended up winning the game so we’re just going to use it and take off with it.”
Southern Miss then scored eight runs in back-to-back games against LSU, crossing the eight-run threshold twice in a row for the first time this postseason.
According to Fischer, the paddle will remain a part of the USM offense. “Since we picked it up, it’s worked. So we’re just going to keep it going.”
The Golden Eagles will host Ole Miss in a Super Regional this weekend.
This story was originally published June 6, 2022 at 8:33 PM.
