BILOXI— Southern Miss found itself dealing with a crucial eighth inning as the Golen Eagles faced a bases loaded, no outs situation against Marshall.
The Golden Eagles made a call for Hunter Stanley out of the bullpen who helped shut the door on the Thundering Herd in Southern Miss’ 10-5 win on Thursday night.
Stanley who took a moment before the stepping on to the mound and said that his approach to the mound was simple.
“You just have to take it one pitch at a time and you can’t get let the moment get too big,” Stanley said. “You have to stay within yourself and stay poised. Just have that fire mentality where it’s just you and the hitter.”
Stanley struck out the first batter but gave up a two-run RBI single. However, Stanley was not rattled and drew a fly out and then threw a strikeout to end the inning.
“That was just huge,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. “He gave up a hit there on a 1-2 that got [Marshall runs], but still he held the damage down. There was a lot of momentum that Marshall was trying to build there. He inherited the damage and honestly he controlled it.”
Stanley threw to complete innings and recorded the save. In his outing, he gave up just one hit and struck out three.
“I was just happy to give up two and really minimize that inning,” Stanley said. “J.C. Keys didn’t have his best stuff but we’ve been preaching all year to come in and pick your brother up when he doesn’t have his best stuff. Just happy to do my job right there.”
Following Stanley damage minimizing inning, Gabe Montenegro sealed the game for Southern Miss with a three-run home run in the top of the ninth inning.
“That was key right there,” Berry said. “I know they felt good two runs doing going into the ninth inning even with Stanley on the mound. Danny Lynch drawing a walk, [Erick] Hoard drawing a walk and of course Montenegro putting a good swing on it that kind of took the air out.”
The Golden Eagles opened the game with a two-run home run from Matthew Guidry and added two more in the fourth inning with RBI singles from Cole Donaldson and Danny Lynch.
“We really talked about picking up where we left off from last night,” Berrys said. “We had a lot of momentum leaving this field. Obviously with Wallner leaving the yard. We wanted to keep that feeling going. We didn’t want to stop playing last night but we did.”
Marshall scored three runs in the fourth inning with two off an error but the Golden Eagles added a run in the fifth and sixth innings to take a 7-3 lead before the eighth inning.
Southern Miss will get Friday off but will play the winner of the Marshall-Rice elimination game on Saturday at 9 a.m.
For game coverage and updates follow @AndrewAbadie on Twitter.
