Southern Miss surges past UAB with late rally

Published 11:20 pm Saturday, May 19, 2012

For the second straight day, Southern Miss stunned UAB with a late offensive outburst.

Bradley Roney led off the top of the ninth inning with a game-tying home run, and the Golden Eagles added three more runs in the inning to beat UAB 8-5.

Southern Miss won its first series in Birmingham since 2006, and will go into the Conference USA Tournament as the No. 4 seed. USM will begin the tournament against Memphis, on Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Trustmark Park.

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Roney also earned the save Saturday by pitching a scoreless ninth inning. He went 2-for-4 with three RBIs in the game.

Mason Robbins pitched six innings, and also went 3-for-5 with two RBIs.

LSU 3, South Carolina 2

Pinch-hitter Jackson Slaid delivered a two-out, RBI single in the top of the 10th inning to give LSU a win over South Carolina and the Southeastern Conference regular-season championship.

The Tigers (42-14, 19-11 SEC) won the title outright after Kentucky and Florida lost Saturday. Those three teams, along with South Carolina, entered the day in a four-way tie for first place.

It’s LSU’s 15th SEC championship, the most in league history.

DSU 11, W. Florida 3

Sam Kidd homered, Brent Kakwitch went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and three RBIs, and Delta State staved off elimination by beating West Florida at the NCAA Division II South Regional in Tampa.

The Statesmen scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning, then four in the third after West Florida had rallied to tie it. Kakwitch’s two-run double in the third inning gave Delta State (42-13) the lead for good.

Delta State advanced to play Nova Southeastern in an elimination game today at noon. The winner of that game will turn around and face either Alabama-Huntsville or Stillman in another loser’s bracket game at 3:15 p.m.

Rice 5, UCF 2

Rice scored three runs in the first two innings and its bullpen held Central Florida to one unearned run over the last 32⁄3 to beat the Knights and win the Conference USA regular-season championship.

Ford Stainback went 4-for-4 for Rice, and had an RBI single in the second inning to put the Owls ahead for good.

Rice (39-15, 17-7 C-USA) has now won or shared 17 consecutive regular-season conference championships in three different leagues. The Owls have won or shared six C-USA regular-season titles and won the league tournament four times. They’ll go for No. 5 this week at Trustmark Park.

D.J. Hicks went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs for Central Florida (41-14, 16-8), which left a dozen runners on base.