By Robert Wilson
Southern Miss sophomore pitcher Tanner Hall was named the winner of the Ferriss Trophy Monday, presented by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Pearl River Resort at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in Jackson.
Hall, from Zachary, La., has a 7-2 record with a 2.68 earned run average in 87 1/3 innings. He ranks in the Top 10 in three pitching categories this season, second in strikeout to walk ratio (120 to 10), sixth in strikeouts and eighth in walks per nine innings (1.03). The two-time Conference USA Pitcher of the Week averages over nine strikeouts per nine innings in his 13 starts and has lasted at least five innings in 12 starts.
Hall was invited last week to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Training Camp, which will be next month.
He is the first pitcher to win the Ferriss Award since Southern Miss’ Nick Sandlin won it in 2018. Hall is the fourth Southern Miss player to win the award. He is the 18th Mississippi college player to receive the award named for former Major League star and Delta State coach, Dave “Boo” Ferriss.
The other finalists were Tim Elko of Ole Miss, R.J. Yeager of Mississippi State, Harrison Haley of Delta State and Brett Sanchez of Belhaven.
Conference USA regular season champion and No. 1 seed Southern Miss, 41-14 and ranked as high as No. 14 by DI Baseball, meets No. 8 seed Alabama-Birmingham Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the first round of the CUSA double-elimination tournament at Southern Miss’ Pete Taylor Park/Hill Denson Field in Hattiesburg.
