Southern Miss baseball loses series to Georgia State
DECATUR, Ga – After getting run ruled two games in a row to begin the series, Southern Miss baseball bounces back to avoid getting swept for the first time since 2022 with a 14-9 victory against the Panthers on Sunday.
The Panthers run ruled Southern Miss in Friday’s series opener by a score of 18-8 fueled by Will Mize and Michael Maginnis each driving in three runs and five other Georgia State players driving in two apiece.
From the mound, Southern Miss starter Niko Mazza endured a brutal night. The Golden Eagle starter gave up 10 earned runs on seven hits over just two plus innings and walked four to suffer the loss.
Southern Miss took the lead to begin the game after Slade Wilks hit a moonshot to right field for his eighth home run of the season to put the Golden Eagles up 1-0.
But that was before the Panther’s responded by getting their first six batters to reach base and each scored putting them up 6-1 early.
The Golden Eagles started to cut into the lead when Lawson Odom blasted his first home run of the season, a two-run shot where he tallied two of his four RBI’s which led the team on the day.
That cut the lead to 6-3, before the Panther’s scored six more runs in the third to take a commanding 12-3 lead.
Southern Miss added a couple runs, but unfortunately the Panthers collected multiple runs over the last several innings, eventually run-ruling the Golden Eagles 18-8.
Saturday did not get any better, when Georgia State run-ruled Southern Miss again in the seven innings. The Panthers homered six times and scored in every inning as they defeated Southern Miss 19-8 to capture the series.
Maginnis and Brennan Hudson each homered twice and drove in four runs to lead the Panthers, where all together the team collected 19 hits.
Southern Miss’s offense didn’t shy away though, as they homered five times tying a season high. Carson Paetow belted a three-run shot in the first for his seventh of the year. Nick Monistere and Tucker Stockman blasted back to back home runs for their sixth and third home runs respectively.
Golden Eagles pitcher Billy Oldham lost his first start of the season where he allowed nine runs on 10 hits with two walks and five strikeouts over three and a third innings.
Dalton McIntyre had a season-best tying hit streak snapped at 10 games in the contest.
Southern Miss managed to salvage the series on Sunday after rallying from a 6-1 deficit and got six strong innings from reliever Kros Sivley as the Golden Eagles won the final game of the series.
Sivley came in for Golden Eagle pitcher Will Armistead and went on to throw a career-high innings total and seemingly was the only Golden Eagle pitcher all weekend to limit the Panther offense. He collected six strikeouts on six hits with a walk and earned the win, his second of the year.
Southern Miss clawed back into the contest and was down 6-5 in the seventh and the Golden Eagles took the lead for good when Monistere led off the inning with a walk and Matthew Russo singled to center before McIntyre followed with an opposite field home run for his second of the year.
Then, Southern Miss added four insurance runs in the ninth with Davis Gillespie driving in a run before Monistere cleared the bases with a double to open the game up.
