Carson Paetow looked up after diving to third base and had a brief moment of disbelief as the ball took a wild ricochet off the wall. With his third base coaching scream, Paetow got himself together quickly and scored as he erupted with emotion giving Southern Miss the lead over Penn and set up an 11-2 win over Penn.
The moment was a surplus of momentum swinging plays in a doubleheader day that included an endless amount of great defensive plays, key relief pitching outings, big hit after hit along with some luck that proved to be the needed formula in helping Southern Miss force a Game 7 winner-take-all in the Auburn Regional.
HISTORY REPEATS
The Quakers held a 2-1 lead after USM and Penn traded runs earlier by the third inning, which led to five innings of nail-biting baseball.
In the exact same scenario as last season against LSU, Justin Storm again delivered a needed and deep outing to help send Southern Miss to the final game of the regional. After taking over on the mound in the fourth inning, Storm delivered 5.2 innings of near perfect pitching. Storm racked up a career-high of strikeouts, gave up no walks and allowed one just one hit in the ninth inning.
“He retired the first 16 hitters that he faced,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. “It was total dominance. I’m not exaggerating. That was probably some of the best stuff that I’ve seen in a long time. That’s stuff that you see on TV in the big leagues. He was dialed in tonight.”
Southern Miss forces winner-take-all in Auburn Regional
Storm’s biggest jam of the night came after Niko Mazza loaded the bases with one, but Storm rung a pair of strikeouts with a clock violation being called on Penn’s hitter with a full count to end the inning. Despite’s Storm’s outing, the Golden Eagles’ lineup struggled and stranded 13 runners on base with Southern Miss’ lone success coming on Paetow’s triple, which gave USM a narrow 3-2 lead.
“I think tonight my best pitch was my slider,” Storm said. “I was kind of using it in any count really. I felt really good. I had a lot of confidence with it and Coach (Christian Ostrander) kept going back to it in 0-0 counts, 0-1 counts and hitter advantage counts. I was just playing the slider and the fastball off each other trying to keep hitters off balance."
MONISTERE’S NEW BAT
Nick Monistere delivered numerous timely hit after another during the doubleheader.
Between Southern Miss’ 9-4 win over Samford and the victory against Penn, Nick Monistere combined to finish 5-for-7, hitting three doubles, five RBIs and drawing two walks.
The secret to his success as by using Dustin Dickerson’s bat. Dickerson notably hit a 3-run home run against Penn and an RBI triple against Samford.
“Dustin gave me his bat today,” Monistere said. “Both of mine were all dented up and so I wasn’t allowed to use them and so Dustin gave me his. I told him I’d give him credit for letting me use his bat. Lately I’ve been off timing and getting jammed a little too much. Today I was trying to get ahead out and get something that I could hit.
“I want to keep it.”
Monistere’s first big was a 2-run double that gave Southern Miss a 5-4 lead against Samford in the sixth inning.
Against Penn, Monistere tied the game at 1-1 with an RBI single and scored the game-tying run from Paetow’s triple. He then closed out his productive day with a 2-run single in the 8-run ninth inning against Penn.
Defense, Defense and More Defense
There was no shortage of memorable defensive plays with Reece Ewing robbing a home run against Samford and then later coming up with a diving catch with Carson Paetow also had a diving catch. Needless to say all three plays prevented Samford from scoring runs.
In the second game against Penn, Christopher Sargent snagged a line drive but Danny Lynch stole the show as he made three straight put outs, each as difficult as the next in the eight inning.
“He went 0-for-5 today but he made up for it at third,” Berry said. “There was one inning where we had three straight assists. One of them was really tricky. The third one he to take a drop step and play that well. He played that like a professional. He’s our captain as is Justin (Storm). Those are the guys that make us tick.”
WHAT'S NEXT?
Southern Miss’ pitching staff has three arms that have yet to be used with Chase Adams, Isaiah Rhodes, Luke Trahan, JB Middleton and Monistere. Southern Miss could also use Will Armistead, who threw 69 pitches on Saturday and Chandler Dawson, who only threw 20 pitches against Samford.
“We’re going to have to go back to the roster and see exactly where we are and what we have,” Berry said. “Everybody that’s available that hasn’t thrown we’ll have to use. I think right now we have momentum going into it. We have always felt like that a star is born everyday. We’ll need that tomorrow for sure. We’ll be looking for somebody to shine for us.”
Southern Miss will now face Penn tomorrow at 2 p.m. The Golden Eagles will be the home team for the final game.
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