By Robert Wilson
In an in-state battle between two of the Top 10 rated college baseball teams in the country, the “Pete Taylor Magic” showed up again.
No. 10 Southern Miss scored two runs off wild pitches on third strikes in the seventh inning to take the lead and held off No. 4 Mississippi State 7-6 Tuesday night before a crowd of 5,716 – the third largest in the history of Southern Miss’ Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg.
Southern Miss’ long time play by play voice John Cox coined the Pete Taylor Magic phrase years ago because of the frequent comebacks by the Golden Eagles’ baseball team.
And with possibly the biggest non-conference, regular season game in program history, the magic was back just in time for Southern Miss.
Southern Miss won its 11th straight game to improve to 11-1 since an opening day loss to University of California Santa Barbara and star pitcher Jackson Flora, projected to be a first round selection in this year’s Major League Baseball draft. Southern Miss defeated MSU for the fifth consecutive time in Hattiesburg.
MSU dropped to 11-2 and lost its second straight game. The Bulldogs lost to No. 1 UCLA 8-7 in 10 innings Sunday in the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series in Arlington, Texas.
Southern Miss, which swept Louisiana Tech in a three-game series this weekend at Louisiana Tech, jumped on MSU, which had made the eight-hour bus ride from Arlington to Hattiesburg after the UCLA loss.
Sophomore third baseman Drey Barrett hit a three-run, 450-foot home run to give Southern Miss a 3-0 lead in the first inning and the the Golden Eagles added one run each in the second and fourth innings to take a 5-0 lead, but MSU rallied with three runs each in the fifth and seventh innings, and took a 6-5 lead when sophomore shortstop and North Carolina State transfer Ryder Woodson hit an run-scoring single for the go-ahead run.
Southern Miss came back in the bottom of the seventh when senior first baseman Matthew Russo scored on a third strike wild pitch and then Barrett scored on another third strike wild pitch for a 7-6 Southern Miss lead.
Southern Miss junior reliever Josh Och pitched a scoreless eighth inning. In the ninth inning, sophomore pitcher and Pearl River Community College transfer Camden Clark – Southern Miss’ ninth pitcher of the game – came in to relieve Och and got three outs and worked around walking a batter. Och was the winning pitcher and improved to 3-0. Clark earned his fourth save.
Barrett led Southern Miss with two hits and three RBI and graduate student first baseman Reed Stallman led MSU with three hits and three RBIs for MSU. Stallman leads MSU with a .452 batting average.
“To square off against a team like that and come away with a victory, that bodes well for our resume,” said Southern Miss baseball coach Christian Ostrander, whose Golden Eagles ranked No. 1 in the country in RPI (Rating Percentage Index, a formula used to rank teams based on winning percentage, strength of schedule, and opponents’ strength of schedule). “Down the road, you might look back that that’s a significant win that helps us achieve our goals. We’ve got a find a way to win and good teams find different ways to win. We did that tonight.”
“Our team has a lot of fight in them and they are not going to lay down ever, no matter what the score is and they have a lot of poise,” first-year MSU coach Brian O’Connor said. “What I look for as a coach is how they respond in a game when things don’t go their way. I love what I’m seeing. I’m not discouraged at all because we’ve got two losses in row. I’m proud of how they are carrying themselves.”
MSU was playing without starting junior centerfielder and Virginia transfer Aiden Teel, who was sent home to Starkville with a sickness, O’Connor said. Teel was the leadoff hitter in the last two games of the weekend against Virginia Tech and UCLA.
