(Photos/Ansley McDaniel)
Southern Miss Baseball lost its first game of the season in a 13-inning battle against South Alabama Tuesday night. With the 6-5 loss, the Golden Eagles have lost six straight to the Jaguars.
“Tough one there. We had our opportunities but could not come through there in the extra innings.” Head Coach Scott Berry said. “[I] thought our guys never quit…they played really hard.”
The five errors committed by the Golden Eagles put them in a tough position to win.
In the second inning, the Jaguars got four hits to jump to a 4-0 lead. Shortstop Dustin Dickerson had an error in the inning that allowed a Jaguar run to come across the plate, which was his second error already in the game.
“I think when you look at the storyline of this game, it is our defense. Our defense killed us tonight.” Berry said. “Obviously, the five errors just make you want to throw up. When they had six runs, three of them were unearned. If you take those off the board, you know you win five to three.”
The last time Southern Miss committed five errors was against Louisiana Tech on May 11, 2018.
After trailing 4-0, Southern Miss finally got on the board with a two-run homer by Reece Ewing. It was the Golden Eagles’ first home run of the season and Ewing’s seventh home run in his career. The play brought Southern Miss back within two runs.
In the eighth inning, with Southern Miss down three runs, Chris Sargent hit a three-run home run to tie the game. It was Chris Sargent’s 17th career home run and already the sixth hit of the new season.
“Those guys have been swinging the bats good through the first four games. Sarge, he’s got that ability to do just what he did, and I was hoping he was going to do it later in the game again, but it didn’t happen.” Berry said.
South Alabama came up with the winning run in the 13th inning on another costly error committed by the Golden Eagles.
South Alabama had 13 hits compared to Southern Miss’s 7. The Jaguars had no errors and led by their defense. Southern Miss did not get a base runner on base in the extra innings until the 11th inning.
“We didn’t score up balls, and other than Blake Johnson’s double, we were in a perfect position to win the ball game. It just didn’t happen,” Berry said.
Southern Miss will start their weekend series on Friday vs. Jacksonville State 6 p.m. at Pete Taylor Park.
