Southeastern falls to No. 3 Southern Miss in mid-week clash
April 12, 2022 — (Hammond, Louisiana)
SLU baseball dropped its fourth straight game on Tuesday night to the visiting Golden Eagles at Alumni Field by a score of 9–4.
Southern Miss climbs to 33–8 on the season and claims its school record 15 straight victory as the team from Hattiesburg continues its superb season.
Southeastern is now 17–24 and continue their inconsistent form that they’ve had all campaign.
The Golden Eagles started off hot in Hammond, putting up back-to-back three run innings in the second and third frames.
Senior third baseman, Danny Lynch, ignited the evening with a solo home run over the wall in right field to put Southern Miss on the board first. Sophomore catcher, Rodrigo Montenegro, followed suit with a double as sophomore center fielder and New Orleans native, Brady Faust, joined Montenegro on base.
Sophomore shortstop, Dustin Dickerson, drove both teammates in on a two RBI double in the left center field gap making it 3–0 in favor of the Golden Eagles after the conclusion of the first two innings of play.
In the top of the third, junior first baseman, Christopher Sargent, led off with a single and crossed home from first base after junior designated hitter, Charlie Fischer brought him in with an RBI double reaching third on the throw home.
Lynch tallied his second RBI of the night grounding out to second base but scoring Fischer from third base in the process. Junior second baseman, Will McGillis, drew a walk putting himself on first base. R. Montenegro stroked a double to right center scoring McGillis to make the score 6–0 in favor of the Golden Eagles through three innings of play.
Southeastern did answer in the bottom of the fourth inning with two runs cutting the deficit to 4.
Fifth year graduate senior and first baseman Preston Faulkner finally got things rolling for the green and gold leading off the inning with a single to left field. After the next two batters got out, junior right fielder, Pierce Leavengood, came up clutch with an RBI triple over the center fielder’s head.
Designated hitter and redshirt junior, Champ Artigues, drove in Leavengood with a single making it 6–2.
Southern Miss immediately responded scratching across another run in the top of the fifth to make it 7–2. After back-to-back hit by pitches to start the inning, Faust singled to load the bases for senior left fielder, Gabe Montenegro, who picked up the RBI on a fielder’s choice which scored Lynch from third.
The Lions again showed fight coming up with another two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to make it 7–4. After sophomore second baseman, Rhett Rosevear singled, senior center fielder, Tyler Finke, crushed a two-run shot over the wall in left field.
“Our offense especially has picked it up this past month. I think we are hitting over .300 as a club and we’ve got to continue to do that, continue to grind out at-bats and keep it going throughout these next three series, and then into the conference tournament,” said Finke following the game.
The Golden Eagles showed why they came into this matchup ranked third in the nation by yet again countering SLU’s punch with one of their own pushing two runs across the board in the top of the sixth inning.
The offensive production came through Sargent and redshirt freshman right fielder, Carson Paetow. After Paetow started the inning with a single, Sargent smashed a home run to right field concluding the scoring from either side for the rest of the game.
Southeastern has all eyes set on the remainder of the regular season and has already flushed the loss.
“Now let’s go win Friday night. I mean, we’re situated right now where it’s a must-win situation to have a shot at the regular-season title. We’ve got three weeks left and you know we can’t look at all nine games. We’ve got to start with the first one,” said Southeastern head coach Matt Riser on his team’s outlook for the rest of their 2021–22 season.
