Baseball Closes Road Swing with 2-1 Loss at Southern Miss

Wednesday, March 1

Hattiesburg, Miss.

6:00 p.m.

Tulane University

1-7

Southern Miss

7-1

Tulane

Southern Miss

Baseball Closes Road Swing with 2-1 Loss at Southern Miss

Mar 1, 2017 | Baseball

Box Score

Box Score

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – The Green Wave wrapped up a five-game road trip on Wednesday night at Hill Denson Field at Pete Taylor Park, dropping a 2-1 contest to former Conference USA rival Southern Miss in a rain-delayed midweek nightcap. Tulane (1-7) recorded seven hits and came close to forcing extra innings for the first time this season, but defensive miscues in the ninth gave the Golden Eagles (7-1) the winning run.

"When you look at Southern Miss's numbers, they were really swinging the bat well coming into this game," head coach Travis Jewett said. "Any time that you can hold a team like this down to two runs, anyone would expect to win. In that last inning, we couldn't have gotten a better comebacker to the pitcher, but if you don't field your position, you create more opportunities for the opponent and they take advantage of that. Right now, we're in an offensive funk, but we just have to keep working because something has got to break in our way sooner or later."

Offensive efforts on both sides were slow to start until the Golden Eagles, who had averaged 11 runs per game coming into Wednesday night's contest, scored the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly in the bottom half of the fifth inning.

The Green Wave plated the tying run in the top of the eighth to knot the ballgame at one run apiece, when a pair of Golden Eagle errors advanced a leadoff single from catcher Jeremy Montalbano to third. Grant Brown recorded his second RBI of the year on a sacrifice fly to center field, but Tulane was unable to bring in additional runs after a hard-hit line drive off the bat of freshman Sal Gozzo was caught by a leaping Southern Miss shortstop to end the Green Wave's offensive efforts in the inning.

Relief pitching held the Tulane bats silent in the top of the ninth, and the Green Wave was one out away from a tenth-inning plate appearance when a ball deflected off the glove of closer Ted Andrews to give Southern Miss the at bat that resulted in the go-ahead run. With the bases loaded and two outs, Andrews missed on a 3-2 count to bring in leadoff hitter Dylan Burdeaux from third, sealing the victory for the Golden Eagles.

The Green Wave return home for the first time since opening weekend to host West Virginia this Friday, March 3 for a three-game set with the Mountaineers. First pitch on Friday is set for 6:30 PM, with the Saturday and Sunday contests beginning at 4:00 PM and 1:00 PM, respectively.

"Being 1-7, there's no time to relax, but we do have to stay the course and continue to try and find ways to right this ship," Jewett said. "We're going to have to play good baseball because West Virginia is a quality opponent, but hopefully playing inside the confines of Greer Field at Turchin Stadium for the next few weeks will be a benefit to us."

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Southern Miss 2, Tulane 1 (Mar 01, 2017 at Hattiesburg, Miss.)
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Tulane.............. 000 000 010 - 1 7 1 (1-7)
Southern Miss....... 000 010 001 - 2 7 3 (7-1)
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Pitchers: Tulane - SOLESKY, Chase; COLLETTI, Christian(5); ISSA, Brandon(8); ANDREWS, Ted(8)
and MONTALBANO, Jeremy. Southern Miss - Braley; Powers(5); Driver(5); Smith(7); N. Sandlin(7)
and Bowen; Donaldson.
Win-N. Sandlin(2-0) Loss-ANDREWS, Ted(0-2) T-2:59 A-2824
Weather: 64, mostly cloudy, SSW 18 mph
Game notes:
The start of the game was delayed 91 minutes due to rain.
COLLETTI faced 1 batter in the 8th.