Southern Miss, Samford split doubleheader

HATTIESBURG -- They played two at Pete Taylor Park on Sunday, and the Southern Miss baseball team liked the way the second game went much more than the way the first one ended.

The Samford Bulldogs won the first game 10-8 in 10 innings while the Golden Eagles took the second game 6-3.

The doubleheader split gives USM a 13-4 record while Samford is 9-7.

"I was real proud of our guys after losing the first game today and even being down 3-0 in the second game, to be able to ground it out, get the momentum back," USM coach Scott Berry. "That's what it was all about."

Southern Miss also won Saturday's game over Samford, 8-2.

After falling behind 3-0 in the second game, Southern Miss went ahead 5-3 with Taylor Braley driving in one run in the fourth inning, one in the fifth when Jake Sandlin tripled and three runs in the sixth inning, with doubles by Sandlin and Tim Lynch being the big blows.

Then Berry gave the ball to 6-foot-7 freshman reliever Walker Powell, who retired the first seven batters he faced. Powell got the win, pitching the final 3 1/3 innings.

"I just wanted to give my team a chance to win," Powell said. "The offense did a good job keeping us in it.

"My go-to pitch is a four-seam fastball which has a natural cut to it. We just wanted to come out after that loss and get the win, and we did that."

Berry liked what he saw out of Powell.

"When he's throwing that cutter, when it's working well for him, he is very, very tough to hit," Berry said. "He's a big, tall kid, he has a chance to really get on top of you with his release. He had more swinging and misses on that club than anybody we threw. That's good to see out of a young man like him.

"He's a guy that had Tommy John surgery going into his senior year (of high school in Fayetteville, Ark.). He's responded well from that and he certainly is in a position to contribute early his freshman year."

In Sunday's second game, starting pitcher Kirk McCarty looked bad in walking the first two batters he faced, but looked good in retiring the next three.

But Samford took a 2-0 lead with the help of back-to-back doubles by T.J. Dixon and Hunter Swilling -- who reached base nine times in Sunday's two games -- and a sacrifice fly Austin Edens. Then the Bulldogs added one more run with a couple of infield singles, a walk and a hit batter before McCarty got out of the bases-loaded jam with a strikeout.

Lynch got USM's first hit, a single, in the fourth inning, and got to third after a walk to Chase Scott and a groundout. Lynch scored on Braley's single, his first hit of the three-game series. Hunter Slater walked to load the bases but reliever Wyatt Burns came to the mound for Samford and got a strikeout to end the threat.

USM cut into the Samford lead in the bottom of the fifth as Dylan Burdeaux was hit by a pitch and scored on Sandlin's triple to make it 3-2.

The Golden Eagles tied the game and went ahead in the bottom of the sixth. Nick Dawson singled, moved up a base and scored on Sandlin's single to make it 3-3. Then USM went ahead 5-3 when Lynch doubled in two runs to make it 5-3.n doubled

The Golden Eagles added one more run in the eighth as Sandlin doubled in Burdeaux, who also doubled.

Sandlin finished with three hits and three RBIs and Lynch had two hits for Southern Miss.

"We were getting beat early," Sandlin said. "I'm not talking about just on the scoreboard, we were getting punched in the face a little bit. Tough teams come up in tough situations."

Swilling and Edens each had two hits for Samford.

In the opener, Samford totaled 16 hits but it was a trio of bunts in the top of the 10th inning that won the game.

With Mason Walley pitching for USM, Danny Rodriguez was hit by a pitch and was safe at second on a sacrifice bunt by Richard Greene. Frankie Navarrete then had a sacrifice bunt, moving the runners to second and third. That's when a suicide squeeze bunt by T.J. Dixon off pitcher Cody Livingston, who had just come into the game, scored Rodriguez to make it 9-8. Then Hunter Swilling was safe on an infield single to score Greene and make it 10-8.

"That middle of the order is a tough bunch to navigate through, I'll tell you that," Berry said.

The Eagles made a little noise in the bottom of the 10th as Chuckie Robinson led off with a single to center field, but Braley's long fly ball to left was caught on the warning track.

Parker Curry (1-1), who pitched five innings in relief, was the winning pitcher and Walley (1-1) was the loser.

Swilling hit a home run, double and two singles for Samford.

Scott with a home run and single and Nick Dawson and Robinson, each with two singles, were top hitters for Southern Miss, which wound up with nine total hits.

"I think we had to find out something about ourselves today," Berry said.

USM will host Alabama at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

This story was originally published March 13, 2016 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Southern Miss, Samford split doubleheader ."