Southern Miss clinches series with 6-4 win over South Alabama

Southern Miss Sports Information

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) - Slade Wilks belted his team-high 18th home run to break a fifth-inning deadlock score in lifting Southern Miss to a 6-4 Sun Belt Conference series-winning contest over South Alabama Saturday evening at Pete Taylor Park/Hill Denson Field.

The Golden Eagles (31-15 overall, 16-7 Sun Belt) won for the ninth time in a row, marking the ninth time in the Scott Berry era that the program has won at least nine-straight games. They collected a school-record 15-game winning streak last season.

For the second consecutive contest, the Golden Eagles fell behind as the Jaguars (23-23, 11-12) plated two runs in the first on a two-run double from Jackson Howard.

Southern Miss got on the board for the first time with a solo run in the second on a RBI single from Carson Paetow, scoring Nick Monistere who doubled with two outs. It was the first of a team-high three hits for Monistere on the day.

The home team then took advantage of a pair of Jaguar errors the following frame as the first run scored via a throwing error with and the second coming home on a Monistere single.

USA then tied the game at 3-3 in the fourth. After two were out, Joseph Sullivan singled and stole second before scoring on a Golden Eagle throwing error on a ground ball to Dustin Dickerson.

Wilks, though, put the Golden Eagles up for good in the fifth, giving the Golden Eagles a home run in each of their nine games. The squad added another tally in the frame on a RBI single from Danny Lynch. He knocked in Christopher Sargent, who doubled and extended his team-high hitting streak to 11 games in the process.

The Jaguars cut the score to 5-4 in the seventh on an RBI fielder’s choice by Erick Orbeta, but Southern Miss added an insurance run in the bottom of the frame on a sacrifice fly from Paetow.

Golden Eagle starter Bill Oldham went 6 1/3 innings to go to 5-2 on the year, giving up four runs (three earned) on six hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. After Will Armistead threw two scoreless innings, Justin Storm got the final two outs on a strikeout and a groundball out to short to end the game and record his team-best eighth save.

Caden Homniok, the second of three Jaguar hurlers, gave up four runs (two earned) on five hits and two walks with a pair of strikeouts over 2 1/3 innings to suffer the loss and fall to 1-1.

The Golden Eagles now go after their third Sun Belt series sweep in a 1 p.m., contest Sunday.

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