Golden Eagles roll past Jaguars

Published 11:34 am Thursday, May 5, 2011

B.A. Vollmuth drove in four runs and Josh Thomason quieted an early South Alabama offensive explosion as Southern Miss captured a 7-4 decision at Eddie Stanky Field in Mobile on Wednesday.

The Golden Eagles (33-11) captured their final regular-season, non-conference tilt to sweep the two-game season series with the Jaguars.

Vollmuth, Tyler Koelling and Ashley Graeter each had two hits to pace the nine-hit Southern Miss attack.

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It was Vollmuth that put USM up early with his 11th home run of the season, a two-run shot, to put give the visitors an early 2-0 advantage. It was Vollmuth’s first home runs since April 10.

The Jaguars, though, answered with two more runs in the bottom of the first and another in the second and third before chasing Golden Eagle starter Dillon Day from the contest. Day gave up four runs on six hits and a walk with two strikeouts over two-plus innings.

Thomason then came in to quiet the USA bats by retiring 20 of 22 batters that he faced down the stretch. He allowed just a third-inning single and a fourth inning walk, before setting down the final 16 batters of the game.

The junior from Oxford improved to 2-1 as he had his longest outing of seven innings. He struck out a season-high five.

Down 4-2 in the fifth, the Golden Eagles rallied for three runs to take the lead for good. With one out, Graeter and Kameron Brunty each drew walks. The Jaguars went to the bullpen and Tyler Koelling greeted Jeff Miller with a RBI double to right-centerfield. Vollmuth then doubled down the leftfield line to score two runs and put Southern Miss ahead for good.

USM added another run in the sixth on a Graeter run-scoring single and one in the seventh on a based loaded walk to Jared Bales.

Miller took the loss for the Jaguars.