PEARL—Strikeouts, walks, and errors told the story of Southern Miss’s 8-3 loss to Ole Miss on Tuesday night at Trustmark Park in Pearl.
“I told the guys that I feel like we played one of our worst games tonight,” Southern Miss head coach Christian Ostrander said. “Defensive miscues and not continuing to hit and strikeouts and stuff.”
Southern Miss (14–7) struck out 12 times, and seven were striking out while looking.
“It’s a mentality type deal,” Ostrander said. “You have got to be the aggressor and stuff. I know there’s going to be called third strikes, that’s going to happen. That is something that we have been talking about and trying to get better at.”
Ole Miss (16–6) immediately took the lead in the bottom of the first inning. Ethan Groff drew a walk from Southern Miss starter Cole Boswell. Then, Jackson Ross singled to third base, allowing Groff to score to score the game’s first run.
After a strikeout, Ethan Lege singled into right field in no man’s land, bringing Ross in from first to put Southern Miss up 2-0.
Southern Miss was able to respond in the top of the third inning.
Carson Paetow led off the third inning with a liner to third base, which the third baseman mishandled, allowing the ball to scoot into the outfield. Paetow ended up second in the play.
Ozzie Pratt batted home Paetow with an RBI single up the right field line on the first pitch he saw, bringing the score to 2-1 in favor of the Rebels. Pratt extended his hitting streak this evening to seven games in a row.
Like the rest of the team, Pratt could not generate much of anything from the offensive side of the ball after the single.
“I think the first pitcher had a sinker and mixed in a slider in well,” Pratt said. “But we should still hit it. It’s whatever, we got to flush it and be ready for Friday.”
Gabe Broadus reached on a fielder’s choice to third base and scored Pratt at home to tie the game at two apiece. Dalton McIntyre then singled to the pitcher to put Southern Miss on top 3-2. The inning would represent the only time Southern Miss had multiple players on base in the entire game.
The relief pitching for the Golden Eagles held Ole Miss under wraps until the sixth inning.
Chandler Best pitched two scoreless innings, Ben Riley-Flowers pitched a scoreless inning, and JW Armistead pitched a scoreless inning.
“I felt good about that,” Ostrander said. “We had to get some guys in there that haven’t had a lot of opportunities. And I thought for the most part there were some good moments.”
Peyton Lacy gave up back-to-back singles to lead off the sixth inning, and Brayden Randle grounded to Davis Gillespie at first base. He hesitated briefly, then threw it home, and the runner was safe, just barely tying the game at three.
Later in the inning, the bases were loaded, and Ross seemed to have hit into a double play, but Nick Monistere bobbled the ball on the opportunity, and everyone was safe, giving the Rebels the lead.
Bo Gatlin devised a sac-fly RBI in the bottom of the seventh to extend the lead to 5-3. That was followed by another error on Southern Miss when Kros Sivley tried to pick off a Rebel at second but threw it into the outfield, causing the runner to score to make it 6-3 Ole Miss.
Ethan Lege homered in the eighth inning to put the nail in the coffin with now an 8-3 margain, representing the final.
With all the strikeouts, errors, and miscues, it seems like a game that USM will just try to flush and move on from.
“It’s all you can do,” Ostrander said when asked if this was just a ‘flush it night.” “We came here to win, and we didn’t get it done and that’s disappointing. You got to move, and you can’t let things linger and that’s our job to lead these guys in. And it’s their job to lead each other as well.”
Southern Miss falls to 14-7, 3-0 in Sun Belt play. This weekend, they will travel to Statesboro, Georgia, to face Georgia Southern (9-10). The series starts Friday with a 5:30 p.m. CT game.
