With the tying run 90 feet away and the game hanging in the balance, Christian Ostrander never made the call.
No signal to the bullpen. No move for Camden Clark.
Instead, he stayed committed to a decision he had already made and trusted his bullpen to deliver in the biggest moment of the game.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t tempted.
Ostrander admitted he glanced toward the bullpen in the top of the eighth inning with Southern Miss clinging to a 3-2 lead. But with Clark slated to start Sunday, he stayed committed, trusting a bullpen that had struggled in recent outings to get the final outs.
“There’s a part of me there at 3-2 that sure did kind of want to say, ‘Cam get ready,’” Ostrander said. “But you’ve got to commit to it. You’ve got to have conviction.”
Josh Och delivered in the top of the eighth with three straight strikeouts, stranding the tying run at third and ending the inning with a ferocious roar from Pete Taylor Park. The right-hander attacked the moment, leaning on a sharp slider that had been inconsistent in recent outings but was dominant when it mattered most.
“I knew it was a big spot in the game,” Och said. “The main thing is I didn’t want to let my brothers down. I was going to do all I can to not let that guy score.”
As the final strike hit the glove in the eighth, Och showed visible emotion on the mound, something that had been challenged out of him by Ostrander in recent weeks.
“If some of my brothers in the dugout see me getting excited… I think it’ll light a spark in them,” Och said.
That spark immediately carried over.
The offense fed off that energy in the bottom of the eighth, sending three balls over the fence in a span of four batters to break the game open and lift No. 22 Southern Miss to a 6-3 series-clinching victory over Texas State.
“Baseball is all about momentum,” Ostrander said. “There was a lot of energy on that last punch out. That energy carries over to your offense as well.”
Davis Gillespie jumpstarted the inning with a solo homer on a 3-2 count that he sent 394 feet to left field, his 10th of the year. Ben Higdon followed with a two-out walk before Tucker Stockman delivered the decisive blow, a 371-foot two-run homer to left field.
The outburst capped a 12-hit day for Southern Miss, which also got four hits from Joey Urban and three from Drey Barrett. Gillespie finished with two hits and three RBIs, producing in multiple key moments throughout the game.
“We needed some of those moments,” Ostrander said. “We’ve had some games get by us that we didn’t get those, which is frustrating, but failure is a part of growth. You’ve got to learn from it and be better when your next opportunity comes.”
The Golden Eagles were lifted by a career start on the mound from Camden Sunstrom. The right-hander delivered six innings, allowing just two runs on four hits while striking out six and walking three on a career-high 93 pitches. It marked his first quality start of the season and just the eighth by a Southern Miss starter this year.
Sunstrom had to battle early, throwing more than 20 pitches in the first inning and working through traffic in each of the opening frames. But once he settled in, he became increasingly difficult to square up, retiring nine of the next 11 batters he faced from the fourth inning on.
“In the fourth inning, I think that was my game changer,” Sunstrom said. “It was more of me staying locked in and not getting too complacent.”
Southern Miss struck first in the bottom of the first inning when Gillespie drove in a run with an infield single. Texas State answered in the second, taking a 2-1 lead on a 418-foot two-run homer by Jackson Cotton.
The Golden Eagles responded immediately. Barrett doubled to open the bottom half of the inning and later scored on an RBI single from Higdon to tie the game at 2-2.
After Sunstrom worked out of more trouble in the third, Southern Miss took the lead for good when Gillespie drove in another run on a fielder’s choice.
From there, it became a grind. Sunstrom handed the ball over to the bullpen with a 3-2 lead, setting the stage for Och’s defining moment in the eighth.
Texas State made things interesting in the ninth, drawing three walks and pushing across a run before Kros Sivley entered and recorded the final strikeout to secure the win.
With the victory, Southern Miss improved to 27-12 overall and 10-7 in Sun Belt play, snapping a three-game Saturday losing streak while securing a series win that certainly could be a momentum shifter in this season.
But, the opportunity in front of them is even bigger.
“We’ve got a great opportunity tomorrow,” Ostrander said. “Just trying to keep that momentum on our side.”
For a team that has spent the better part of the last month searching for consistency, Saturday offered something different: a glimpse of what it can look like when all phases click at once.
Southern Miss and Texas State will battle it out in the series finale at 12 PM on Sunday.
