All it took was one big inning, and the Golden Eagles were golden.
The Southern Miss baseball team used nine hits to score 12 runs in the fifth inning Friday to open the Baton Rouge Regional in style, advancing to the winner’s bracket with a 15-3 victory over Arizona State at Alex Box Stadium.
Shortly after the Sun Devils took a 1-0 lead with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth, Storme Cooper tied the game for Southern Miss in the top of the fifth with his first home run since the 2017 season.
Cooper led Southern Miss with three hits after recording only five in the regular season.
“He [Cooper] hasn’t seen a lot of playing time this year, but, of late, he’s really capitalized on opportunities that he’s gotten,” said Southern Miss coach Scott Berry. “Nothing was bigger today than his solo shot to lead off that fifth inning and start everything going.”
Forty-five minutes later, the Golden Eagles took a 12-1 lead into the bottom of the frame.
“It got the guys fired up,” said Cooper.
Aside from Cooper’s tone-setting hit, Matt Wallner highlighted the outburst by launching a three-run homer, his 22nd of the season, in his second plate appearance of the inning. The swing produced USM’s final three runs of the frame.
“It helps when you get in a rhythm as an offense,” said Wallner. “That’s what we were that inning, so it kinda made it pretty easy just to go up there and have a solid approach. I just got a hanging curveball over the plate.”
Gabe Shepard followed with his fourth scoreless inning of work on the mound for Southern Miss in the bottom of the fifth. The redshirt freshman went 5.2 innings, scattering six hits and allowing two runs in only his third start of the season.
“It gave me a ton of confidence knowing they believed in me and trusted in me to go out there and get the job done,” said Shepard. “But I also feel like my teammates had confidence in me. It makes me feel good going out there and knowing they have my back.”
Sean Tweedy, J.C. Keys and Mason Strickland combined to go the final 3.1 innings for Southern Miss, and Danny Lynch capped off USM’s big day at the plate with a three-run homer in the eighth. Lynch and Cooper combined for six of USM’s 17 hits in the game, while Wallner, Fred Franklin, Gabe Montenegro and Hunter Slater each had two apiece.
The Golden Eagles (39-19) advance to face either LSU or Stony Brook in the winner’s bracket on Saturday at 6 pm.
“Whoever we play, whether it’s Stony Brook or LSU, we know we’re gonna get a quality club and a challenge,” said Berry.
