By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
HATTIESBURG – As it got to the late innings, Southern Miss was waiting and waiting for one of its leaders to step up at the plate.
Just in time, right on cue, Golden Eagle team captain Will McGillis came forward.
McGillis smacked a two-run triple in the bottom of the eighth inning to tie it up and sophomore Slade Wilks delivered a game-winning single with the bases loaded in the ninth as the Golden Eagles defeated Jacksonville State 4-3 Friday at Pete Taylor Park.
The victory in the first of a three-game weekend series lifted USM’s record to 4-1 for the early going. The Gamecocks, who lost all three games opening weekend to Kentucky, then dropped a mid-week game to Alabama, remained winless for the season.
“This was a much-needed win, coming after the extra-inning loss on Tuesday,” said Southern Miss coach Scott Berry. “We’ve been sitting on that thing since Tuesday, so for us to come back tonight and win it late, I hope gives us confidence moving forward.”
This was a pitcher’s duel through the first four innings, as right-handers Ben Ethridge and Reid Fagerstrom matched zeroes, strikeouts and pitch count until the fifth inning.
Ethridge, in fact, was masterful until he got in trouble in the fifth. He retired 12 of the first 13 batters he faced, started 10 of them off with strikes, struck out seven and didn’t walk anyone. The only baserunner for JSU was a leadoff hit-batter on the first pitch of the third inning.
But trouble found Ethridge in the fifth. Gamecock freshman Brennan Norton broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff single.
On the next pitch, the Gamecocks executed a hit-and-run to perfection, with senior Tanner Snow poking a single through the hole vacated by shortstop Dustin Dickerson.
Junior T.J. Reeves turned on a 3-2 pitch and sent it down the leftfield line for a run-scoring double, a sacrifice fly plated a run and Reeves came home on a suicide squeeze play to make it 3-0.
“Hat’s off to Jacksonville State,” said Berry. “Three straight hits, sacrifice fly and a squeeze and the next thing you know you’re down 3-0, and the kid had been really pitching well. But that’s baseball.”
Southern Miss got a run back in the bottom of the inning but should have had more, chasing Fagerstrom with three straight walks to open the inning. He finished with seven strikeouts and four walks and allowed three hits.
Junior Danny Lynch drove in the run with a sacrifice fly to centerfield, but Gamecock right-hander Isaiah Magwood came on in relief to snuff out the rally with a bases-loaded strikeout.
That was the pattern for much of the night. The Golden Eagles had baserunners in each of the first four innings, but couldn’t put anything together, suggestive of a hangover from Tuesday’s 13-inning 6-5 loss to South Alabama
“We were struggling until Will got the triple in the eighth,” said Wilks, a sophomore designated hitter. “There could have been (some lethargy lingering from Tuesday), especially since we were hitting balls hard, and they were going right to the fielders. That didn’t help.”
Fortunately, the Golden Eagles were able to hang in there, because right-hander Tyler Stuart came on in relief of Ethridge and took command.
The big (6-9, 250) third-year sophomore allowed just one hit in four innings, struck out three and walked just one, and was the beneficiary of the victory when USM came back to win it.
“When I go out there, I’m fighting for every inning,” said Stuart. “I don’t know how many innings I’m going to go, whether I’m going to finish the game, or whatever is needed.
“My job is just to put up zeroes. If I put up a zero in every inning, I know I can keep our team in the running. When we were down 3-1, I had to keep confidence that we could come back.”
After breezing through the sixth and seventh innings six-up, six-down, Stuart allowed a leadoff single and a walk in the eighth. But with one out, he induced a double-play ball up the middle that Dickerson handled himself to get out of the inning.
And that’s when the Golden Eagle leadership showed up.
With eight starters returning this season, expectations are sky-high, so the pressure has been on in preseason and in the early going.
“We’ve got a ton of great leaders on this team, from the pitching staff to the offensive players,” said McGillis, a junior who in his third season as the starting second baseman for the Golden Eagles.
“We’re really a veteran group this year, with eight of nine starters returning, so there’s a lot of leadership out here.”
USM got right to work on Magwood in the eighth. Junior Reese Ewing stroked a leadoff single to leftfield and took second on a throwing error. Wilks blooped a flyball into mid-centerfield that dropped between three defenders and resulted in a double.
“You go to the eighth inning, and we had two really good at-bats from Ewing and Slade Wilks, two hustle plays to get to second on both of them,” said Berry. “Then Will McGillis ties it up with the triple and we walk it off in the ninth.”
McGillis fell behind 0-2, fouled strike three off the plate, then went to the opposite field with a sharply hit ball that landed three feet inside the rightfield line and rolled all the way into the corner, for a two-run triple.
“I knew I had to do something there,” said McGillis. “I tried to keep the same approach and not come off of that.
“Sometimes when you start thinking about it being 0-2, you start to chase. So, I just wanted to narrow it in and wait on my pitch.”
The Golden Eagles ran themselves out of any more runs in the inning, as JSU came back with senior left-hander Dylan Hatchcock, who got a strikeout and a double play when McGillis was tagged out at the plate trying to score on a shallow fly ball.
Nevertheless, the momentum had shifted, and Stuart was dominant in the ninth, retiring the side in order on 10 pitches.
“I had a lot of change-ups for strikes,” said Stuart. “I got a lot of rollovers, fly balls. I knew the ball wasn’t traveling well tonight, so I threw a lot of change-ups, and they were out front a lot.”
Stuart was 0-2 with a 7.16 earned-run average in 13 relief appearances last season, but he is being groomed for a spot in the starting rotation, and for long relief.
“For us, the player of the game was Tyler Stuart,” said Berry. “He gave us a chance to win and that’s what we needed. “We 100 percent expect that from him and, more importantly, he expects it of himself.
“Plus, him going four innings keeps our bullpen fresh for the rest of the weekend. We only used two guys tonight and Tyler allowed us to do that.”
The game-winning rally in the bottom of the ninth was pretty straightforward. Dickerson drew a leadoff walk, Lynch got him to second on a sacrifice and he went to third on an infield single up the middle.
The Gamecocks then walked Ewing to load the bases and put the force on at the plate, but Wilks made short work of that strategy on the first pitch with a deep fly ball that got over the leftfielder’s head for an RBI single.
“I knew they were trying to set up the double play,” said Wilks. “But I was very confident that I was going to get the job done. Fastball, first pitch, wanted to get it done early, and good things happened.
“I knew at the crack of the bat that it was going to be deep enough for him to score, so I wasn’t worried about whether it was a hit or an out. I knew it was going to get the job done.”
The two teams will meet again at 2 p.m. Saturday and again at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
JSU will send freshman right-hander Tanner Jones out to pitch Saturday against sixth-year senior right-hander Hunter Riggins. Sunday’s matchup features sophomore right-hander Camden Lovrich for the Gamecocks against sophomore right-hander Hurston Waldrep.
College Baseball Linescore
Friday at Pete Taylor Park
Southern Miss 4, Jacksonville State 3
JSU 000 030 000 – 3 4 3
USM 000 010 021 – 4 9 0
JACKSONVILLE STATE (0-5): Brennen Norton 1B; Tanner Snow 1B; T.J. Reeves 2B; Brooks Bryan 1B. LP – Dylan Hathcock (0-1). Also pitching – Reid Fagerstrom (starter) (7 Ks); Isaiah Magwood.
SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI (4-1): Gabe Montenegro 1B; Danny Lynch 1B; Christopher Sargent 1B; Reese Ewing 2B, 1B; Slade Wilks 2B, 1B; Will McGillis 3B; Carson Paetow 1B. WP – Tyler Stuart (1-0). Also pitching – Ben Ethridge (starter) (7 Ks).
Photos courtesy of Joe Harper
