Southern Miss Beats Jacksonville State 6-2
6/3/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
| 2006 NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional |
Southern Miss Beats Jacksonville State 6-2
TUSCALOOSA, ALA ?? Powered by solo home runs by Drew Carson, Brian Dozier and Jody Blount coupled a masterful pitching performance by Cliff Rossum, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles soared over the Jacksonville State Gamecocks, 6-2, in an NCAA elimination game at Sewell-Thomas Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
"I thought we played a complete game, finished well," Southern Miss head coach Corky Palmer said. "Russum gave us a great start. Timely hit and didn't make any errors. It was the best game we've played in a while. It was a complete game, pitched it well, got big hits and caught the ball and got the win."
Rossum, who went seven innings and yielded one run on five hits, improved his season record to 8-6. USM senior All-American closer James Best came in the eighth to earn his 13th save of the year.
"The difference in the game was their offense and we just had a hard time shutting them down," Jacksonville State head coach Jim Case said. "They were able to hit several solo homers and we just had a hard time keeping it in the ballpark. I thought our kids battled really hard. We had some opportunities and even at the end had a chance to get the tying run to the plate. A lot of credit goes to Southern Miss. I thought their kid pitched really good and limited us to the number of opportunities that we had."
The Gamecocks struck first in the bottom of the first on a two-out home run by designated hitter Garrett Bass, his seventh of the season. It would be the lone Jacksonville run until the ninth inning when Bert Smith grounded into a fielder's choice that scored Richard Turner from third.
After pitching shutout ball for the first three innings and retiring the first two batters in the fourth, Jax State starter Tony Drinkard gave up a two-out wind blown homer to right field by Southern Miss' leftfielder Carson.
Drinkard, who gave up three runs in six innings of work, dropped to 4-5 on the season.
USM's shortstop Dozier swatted his second home run of the tournament and only his third of the season in the fifth, giving the Golden Eagles a 2-1 lead.
In the top of the sixth, the Eagles extended their lead to 3-1, scoring of a Carson sacrifice fly that plated centerfielder Toddric Johnson, who had reached base on an infield single before advancing to second on an error and third on a single by Blount.
Blount smashed his 10th home run of the season in the eighth off Jacksonville State reliever Clark Jinks, making it 4-1;and the Golden Eagles tacked on two more runs in the ninth on a two-out single by Johnson to finalize their scoring for the afternoon.
Dozier, the nine-hole hitter for USM, went three-for-four and had a game high seven assists from his shortstop position. Blount and Johnson also had two hits for USM, while Jacksonville State's centerfielder Jason Horn had two hits for the losers.
The Golden Eagles, now 39-22 on the year, advance to the Sunday afternoon game against the loser of the Alabama-Troy contest, while Jacksonville concludes its season with a record of 35-24.
