The Ferris award winner Tanner Hall showed his power to open up tournament play for Southern Miss, fueling his team to victory by blanking Army 2-0.
“I don’t think you can say enough about Tanner Hall and his outing today. Another quality, quality start. He went deep into the eighth inning,” Southern Miss head coach Scott Berry said.
Hall retired the first 11 batters he faced through that span, fanning six batters in a row by strikeout. Hall’s final line was 8.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K’s and 109 TP.
“You just can’t say enough about this young man, he came in with 130 strikeouts and 11 walks and leaves today with 139 strikeouts and 12 walks. Those numbers are just so impressive, and it’s a credit to him and his ability to just pound the zone.” Berry said.
For Hall, it was just another day at the office for him.
“The change up was definitely on. Everything felt comfortable but I was just playing off of my fastball today, and I have pretty good command of it.” Hall said. “I got ahead on early swings and stuff and that gave me a sense of confidence out there and just made me feel like it was going to be alright.”
Southern Miss and Army had never faced each other in baseball before this game, and it was none other than the classic pitcher’s duel.
“Two studs on the mound going back and forth. What the southern Miss pitcher did, he is one of the best in the country, whose numbers show it,” Army’s head coach Jim Foster said after the game.
Southern Miss and Army were scoreless through four innings. The Golden Eagles had their opportunities to score, as they left nine runners on base. They averaged, coming into the game, 9.3 runners left on base.
Reece Ewing drew a walk in the bottom of the fifth, and Christopher Sargent nailed a ball that took a good bounce off the wall and scored Ewing all the way from first. That would break the tie and give Southern Miss a 1-0 lead.
“It felt good. We left a lot of opportunities out there, sometimes it takes one swing to open it up,” Sargent said. “Shout out to Reece for running hard.”
Southern Miss would scratch another run across in the bottom of the sixth with a run scored on an error, which would push the score to 2-0, and that’s all it took.
“Any win at this point in the season is a great win. We had to really compete against a good Army team…hats off to them and we really had to compete,” Berry said.
Safe to say this type of scoring will not be enough to beat the high-powered offenses of the next game they will play. Southern Miss will play LSU or Kennesaw St in the winner’s bracket game at 6 pm.
