Southern Miss' bats continued to stay hot, with no better illustration being Carson Paetow’s no-doubter, two-run homer to center field in the eighth inning that shored up the Golden Eagles’ 8-2 Friday win against Louisiana Tech.
Southern Miss belted three home runs in the win as the Golden Eagles have now hit a home run in each of its last 10 games, which ties for the most consecutive games since the 2017 season. USM’s 13 hits is also the fifth straight game that the Golden Eagles have up double-digit hits.
“Not really,” said Paetow, when asked if Southern Miss has changed anything with its offense.
“Most of our at-bats have been missed hits. It’s just been trusting the approach and sticking with it.
“We definitely feed off each other a lot. The energy is unreal in the dugout. When one of my buddies does good, we love each other and we’re really close, so it just fires up the whole dugout.”
The Golden Eagle bats seized momentum early after Reece Ewing hit the first home run of the game in the first inning to give Southern Miss an early 2-0 lead.
Southern Miss continued to build its early lead after Will McGillis led the second inning off with a solo home run. Then in the fourth, Gabe Montenegro delivered a two-run RBI single with two outs to push the lead to 5-0.
Behind the lineup, Southern Miss starting pitcher Tanner Hall turned in another impressive performance as he struck out 11 batters, gave up no walks in eight innings.
“I just think that set the tone,” Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. “It just picked up where we left off last weekend. We swung it well last weekend at Western Kentucky and its carried over into today. We had some great at-bats. The thing that impressed me is how we used the whole field. We hit well with strikes. When you hit three home runs and you get the pitching like we did with Tanner it’s hard to win today if you are the other team.”
Louisiana Tech on the board by scoring a run in the sixth and seven, with both runs being unearned.
A fielding error set up the Bulldogs driving in the first run with an RBI fielder’s choice. Then in the seventh, LA Tech scored on a passed ball to narrow the lead to 5-2 in the seventh inning.
After the seventh, Hall’s pitch count was up to 93 pitches, but the sophomore convinced his coaches to go back out and pitch the eighth inning.
“(Coach Christian Ostrander) asked me if I wanted to and I told him yes that I want this inning,” Hall said. “He told me to give him three outs because my pitch count was high. I convinced him and I went back out and got three more.”
Hall delivered as he retired La Tech’s lineup in order and recorded a pair of strikeouts in the process. Hall threw a career-high of 102 pitches with 76 going for strikes.
“(Coach Oz) said to attack these guys,” Hall said. “They are good hitters, but they also get out. If you have that confidence to attack them then you’ll put them in on their heels. You don’t want to be on yours.
“That’s what we do as a pitching staff and that’s what we have done all year. We have seen success. I was just doing the same thing.”
Southern Miss then tacked on its insurance runs with Paetow’s home run and Dustin Dickerson driving in Gabe Montenego on an RBI sac fly.
“That was huge,” Berry said. “He’s got one of the prettiest swings that I think I have seen from that left side. He can put a charge in it like we saw. (I knew it was gone) and so did that centerfielder. I knew when he didn’t take off after it and as shallow as he was playing it that it was well hit.”
Saturday’s first pitch is set for 2 p.m.
