Southern Miss baseball shuts down Liberty, posts an opening-weekend sweep
Any questions lingering around the Southern Miss pitching staff were met with an emphatic answer on opening weekend.
The Golden Eagles finished off a sweep of the visiting Liberty Flames with a 7-2 win on Sunday, wrapping up a series that saw USM’s three starters allow just one earned run over three games.
Making his first career start on his 21st birthday, Niko Mazza threw 5.1 innings with six strikeouts, four hits and one run allowed in the series finale.
Mazza was backed up by USM’s best day at the plate of the series. Center fielder Matt Etzel drove in two runs and West Harrison grad Tate Parker scored twice off the bench, one via a 388-foot home run in the eighth.
“We created an opportunity today for ourselves for the past two games to do something special and that was to sweep a very quality opponent here,” Golden Eagle coach Scott Berry said after the game. “Our guys didn’t miss a beat. I think they were really locked in, came out and got the job done.”
Liberty is the ASUN Conference’s preseason pick to win the league. Southern Miss has won its opening series nine years in a row and has swept it in eight of the past 11 years.
Staff picks up where it left off
Despite two new starters and a host of unknowns in the bullpen, USM remained just as efficient on the mound as it was last year.
Liberty scraped across three runs over the weekend, one of them unearned. The Eagles’ staff struck out 37 batters over 27 innings and walked only seven.
The first two games saw Nebraska transfer Tyler Martin throw three scoreless in middle relief and Kros Sivley toss four shutout innings in his first collegiate appearance.
Billy Oldham, who transferred in from Division 3 Eastern Connecticut State, inherited two base runners with one out Sunday and retired the first two batters he faced.
True freshman J.B. Middleton then struck out four over two empty innings in his first live action since high school.
“Very encouraging to see J.B. Middleton do what he did and we’ve been seeing that,” Berry said. “That’s why there was no reservation in handing him the ball at a young age.”
Justin Storm finished the first and third games of the series, allowing the bullpen’s only run of the series: a solo home run in the ninth inning of Game 3.
The bullpen may have even performed a little too well for Berry, who was hoping to put a few more arms on the mound.
“Still, there’s a lot of unknowns,” Berry said. “It’s kind of double-edged, there. We didn’t get as many guys in as we probably would like, but the guys that did get in there, they obviously responded very, very well.”
Etzel’s debut makes a difference
Etzel showed flashes of the player about which his teammates have been raving in his highly anticipated debut this weekend.
Etzel had an RBI double Sunday and drove in his second run via a sacrifice fly. He also showed off his range in center with a leaping grab against the outfield wall in the second inning.
“I told y’all, he can go get them and makes it look easy,” Berry said. “That’s exactly what he does. He’s an exciting player. We haven’t even seen what he’s capable of doing, in all honesty, and I’m not putting pressure on the young man. I’ve watched him since August. He’s just fun to watch.”
Etzel had two hits, a double, an RBI, a run scored and a stolen base in the first game. His presence coincides with a stark shift in base running aggressiveness from a year ago.
Southern Miss already has five stolen bases after not recording a swiped bag until the 13th game of the season in 2022.
“Beginning of the season we were all a little jittery, now we’re starting to get the hang of everything,” Etzel said. “We’re starting to hit balls more often, and it’s only going to go up from here.”
The Golden Eagles host New Orleans on Tuesday before hosting Illinois for three days next weekend. Tuesday night’s game against the Privateers will start at 6 p.m. and air on ESPN+.
This story was originally published February 19, 2023 at 4:14 PM.
