Nicholls used three runs on seven hits to stun No. 10 Southern Miss 3-2 in nonconference play Wednesday night at Pete Taylor Park.
The loss ends an 11-game win streak by the Golden Eagles dating back to the second game of the season.
“Credit to Nicholls, they earned that win,” Southern Miss head coach Christian Ostrander said after the game. “I thought their pitchers did a tremendous job of mixing and keeping our guys in between.”
The win is the third for Nicholls in the last four meetings with the Golden Eagles.
Matthew Russo gave Southern Miss the early lead in the bottom of the first inning with his third home run of the season, a 384-foot solo shot to left-center field to put Southern Miss up 1-0.
The Colonels answered with a solo homer off Southern Miss starter Thomas Crabtree when Nico RijoBerger got one just over the left-field wall, 369 feet, to even the score at 1-1.
Southern Miss retook the lead in the bottom of the fourth inning when Russo reached on a fielder’s choice that was gunned to home plate, but their catcher dropped it which scored Joey Urban after a triple.
Nicholls took the lead for good in the fifth inning when Clayton Pourciau drag bunted to first base that Russo mishandled, scoring the tying run. Then Keegan Giger singled to center field to score another run for Nicholls to earn them a 3-2 lead.
The Colonels then ran in reliever Tyler Avery who subsequently sat down nine Southern Miss batters in a row until the seventh inning. Southern Miss then left four runners on base across the final three innings to earn the loss.
The obvious explanation might have been the team’s mindset after such an emotional victory over No. 4 Mississippi State the night before. And Ostrander said that the message was clear to the team to stay away from that mindset.
“The normal person is going to ride that emotion from last night and you can sleepwalk if you allow it,” Ostrander said. “But these are young men that are learning that the mind’s a powerful thing, and you’ve got to demand extreme focus when you might be a little fatigued. Hopefully we’ll learn from this and next time it comes around, we’ll be better.”
Ostrander said he liked what he saw from Crabtree, despite the solo homer. His final line: 4.1 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 BB and eight strikeouts, which is a career high for him. He did earn the loss, however.
“I thought Thomas threw well,” Ostrander said. “I was encouraged to see that fastball, splitter combo, it worked. He gave us a chance to win and that’s all you could ask. On the mound as a whole I thought we gave ourselves a chance to win tonight. We just couldn’t muster up enough offense, and you get beat three to two.”
It was an ugly performance for Southern Miss batters, going 5-for-32 from the plate, 1-for-10 with runners on and 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. They had two errors and just one walk to 11 strikeouts from a Nicholls pitching staff that came into the game with a 6-plus ERA.
“We didn’t show enough discipline there to grind out any at bats,” Ostrander said. “That’s something we’ve been showing and I don’t know if they felt a little bit of pressure and stuff as the game stayed tight.”
No. 10 Southern Miss will fall to 11-2 on the season while Nicholls will improve to 7-8. The Golden Eagles will welcome North Alabama to the Pete this weekend for a three-game series.
“We don’t like getting beat here,” Ostrander said. “I hope they are pissed off about it, and I look forward to seeing their response on Friday.”
